COAL 

>VERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL 


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COAL 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  or  CONTROL 

Government  Ownership  of  Navy  Coal  Land 
and  Control  of  the  Coal  Industry 


By 
D.  J.  McADAM,  M.  A.,  LL.  D. 

Professor  of  Engineering  in  Washington  and  Jefferson  College 

President  of  the  Moorefield  Coal  Company 

etc 


NEW  YO*K 

AUTHORS  &  PUBLISHERS  CORPORATION 

4th  Avenue  and  30th  Street 

M  c  m  x  x  I 


4/3 


*•"      '     ' 


Copyright,  1 921,  by  the 
AUTHORS  AND  PUBLISHERS  CORPORATION 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

Preface 7 

I     Importance  of  Fuel 9 

II     Coal,  the  Present  Fuel  of  the  World     ....  13 

III  Strike  of  the  Mines 19 

IV  Coal   Resources  of  the   UnitedJ  States,   Estimated 

BY    THr-fiEOLOGICAL    SURVEY 28 

V    What  Causes  Are  at  Work  to  Promote  Coal  Con- 
servation         35 

VI    Government  Coal  Land  Held  for  Its  Exclusive  Use 

— "Navy"  Coal  Land — Battleship  Coal  Land     .     .  40 

V !  1     Navy  Coal  in  Alaska 5? 

VIII     Government  Owned   Land  Leased  for   Commercial 

Purposes 62 

IX     Coal  Land  in  the  Hands  of  Private  Owners     .     .  66 

X     To  What  Department  Does  Mining  Belong?     .  77  ^ 

XI     How   the* Bureau    of   Mining    Will   Control   the 

Mining  Industry 82 

XII     Methods  of  Enforcing  These  Controls     ....  104 

XIII  Labor  and  Wages 110 

XIV  Is  the  Right  to  Strtke  "Inviolable"?     Does  Might 
Make  Rtght? 121 

XV    Industrial  Democracy  in  the  Mining   Industry    .  128 

XVI     The  Anthracite  Field  in  Pennsylvania     ....  141 

XV11     Proper  Use  of  Coal  After  it  is  Mined     ....  159 

XV  IT  I     Auxiliaries  to  Our  Coal  Supply 176 

XIX    "White  Coal" 183 


4?g;] 


PREFACE 

Coal  is  a  public  utility.  This  is  the  viewpoint  from 
which  this  book  is  written.  To  the  minds  of  those  who 
use  the  term  generally,  "Coal  is  a  public  utility"  means 
simply  that  coal  is  something  that  is  useful  to  the  public. 
It  means  that,  of  course,  but  it  means  much  more :  it  means 
that  coal  belongs  to  the  people.  On  it  depend  the  com- 
fort, even  the  life,  of  the  people  and  the  commercial  su- 
premacy and  industrial  life  of  the  nation.  To  waste  coal 
is  a  sin  agains  the  whole  people.  Those  who  have  bought 
the  coal  land  are  entitled  to  all  the  rights  that  go  with  a 
public  utility.  Their  ownership  is  in  the  nature  of  a  per- 
petual lease.     They  hold  it  in  trust  for  the  public  use. 

The  lease  of  a  coal  mine  always  contains  a  provision 
that"  mining  must  be  carried  on  without  waste,  and  that 
the  mine  may  be  inspected  at  any  time  when  such  inspec- 
tion does  not  interfere  with  the  work  of  the  mine.  These 
provisions  help  the  operator  and  safeguard  the  owner. 

Control  such  as  that  is,  in  effect,  the  kind  we  have  ad- 
vocated for  the  entire  coal  industry.  Operators  who  do 
not  need  control, — as  many  of  them  do  not, — will  not  be 
affected  and  need  not  complain.  Those  who  do  need  it 
must  have  it.    The  public  good  is  paramount. 

For  a  large  part  of  the  coal  land,  private  ownership  is 
the  best  plan.  The  stimulus  of  ownership,  the  appeal  to 
efficiency,  and  the  urge  to  new  inventories  are  good  for  any 
business.  For  one  part  of  the  coal  field,  however,  govern- 
ment ownership  is  imperative. 

A  Battleship  Without  Fuel!  Would  that  that  cry  might 
reach  the  ear  of  everyone  who  is  responsible  for  our  future 
efficiency  on  the  sea!     If  we  are  to  have  a  navy  in  half 


8 

a  century  from  now,  we  must  act  quickly  if  we  are  to 
have  a  proper  navy  fuel.  The  battleship  Tennessee  is  to 
make  a  speed  of  38  knots  an  hour.  The  best  Bering  River 
coal  could,  with  the  greatest  difficulty,  drive  a  ship  18  knots 
an  hour.  The  best  navy  coal  is  the  Pocahontas  coal.  As 
I  write,  an  agreement  made  by  a  company  to  buy  24,000 
acres  of  Pocahontas  coal  land  in  the  heart  of  the  field  lies 
before  me,  along  with  an  advertisement  of  a  tract  of  2,400 
acres.     "Our  'Navy'  coal  will  soon  be  a  memory." 

The  Author. 


COAL 

CHAPTER  I 

IMPORTANCE  OF  FUEL 

Wood :  Nearly  Negligible  as  Fuel— Destroyed  in  Clearing 
Forests — Built  into  Houses  and  Wasted. 

Natural  Gas:  Waste  in  Production  and  Use — Supply  De- 
clining. 

Oil:  Wastefully  Produced— 'Nearly  Exhausted  in  the  East- 
ern Industrial  Fields. 

Woody  Gas,  and  Oil  Fuels 

When  the  Roman  mythology  made  Vulcan  the  god  of 
fire,  itt  also  made  him  god  of  all  handicraftsmen.  "He 
was  the  divine  artist,  the  creator  of  all  that  was  beautiful 
as  well  as  of  all  that  was  mechanically  wonderful  in  the 
abodes,  of  the  gods."  The  spark  that  he  got  from  heaven 
kindled  the  fires  that  warmed  civilization  into  life  on  earth. 
When  man  began  to  be  a  fire-making  and  fire-using  animal, 
he  began  to  draw  away  from  the  other  animals.  Every 
new  advance  in  civilization  has  been  concurrent  with  new 
sources  and  new  uses  of  heat.  Fuel,  then,  has  been  a  mat- 
ter of  large  concern  to  mankind.  Nature  has  been  very 
kind  to  a  large  part  of  the  earth.  Fuel  sprang  unbidden 
from  the  ground  in  its  trees  and  grass. 

Wood  As  Fuel 

In  the  largest  part  of  the  United  States,  the  pioneers 
found  the  hills  and  valleys  covered  with  timber, — a  fuel 
ready  at  hand,  simply  beckoning  to  the  axman  to  come 
and  get  it.  It  was  his  building  material  as  well  as  his  fuel. 
From  it  came  the  logs  for  the  walls  of  his  cabin ;  from  it 
he  hewed  the  puncheons  for  his  floor ;  from  it  he  split  and 
shaved  the  shingles  for  his  roof.  He  did  not  grudge  the 
fuel  that  he  put  in  his  house,  for  it  was  so  abundant  as 
to  be  a  nuisance.  He  did  not  spare  it.  He  rolled  in  the 
back-log  and  fore-log,  and  split  the  kindling  for  the  roar- 


10  COAL 


ing  lire  over  which  the  busy  housewife  swung  her  crane 
burdened  with  its  load  of  pots  and  kettles.  On  the  wintry 
evening 

They  gathered  round  the  fire, 
And  piled  the  wood  on  higher, 
As  the  song  and  jest  went  round. 

All  these  uses  made  small  inroads  into  the  fuel  that 
must  be  sacrificed.  The  timber  that  could  not  be  used  was 
an  encumbrance.  It  must  be  cleared  away  to  make  room 
for  the  potato  patch,  the  ever-widening  corn  field,  and  the 
wheat,  oats,  and  rye  fields.  It  must  be  felled  and  grubbed 
and  destroyed.  The  logs  must  be  heaped  together  and 
burned.  So,  this  is  the  day  for  the  log-rolling.  Came  the 
neighbors  with  their  oxen  and  log-sleds,  and  with  freshly 
ground  axes.  Huge  trees  were  felled,  and  the  logs,  which 
would  be  the  wonder  of  our  lumbermen,  were  rolled  to- 
gether and  burned.  So  they  went  from  cabin  to  cabin, — 
neighbor  helping  neighbor  for  help  in  return, — in  this  de- 
plorable, but  necessary,  destruction  of  fuel. 

To-day  our  hills  and  valleys  are  almost  denuded  of  their 
trees.  These  trees  are  built  into  our  houses,  turned  into 
paper,  burned  in  our  forest  fires,  or  wasted,  or  destroyed. 
Comparatively  little  systematic  effort  has  been  made  to 
reforest,  and  not  enough  to  prevent  and  control  forest  fires. 
The  price  of  building  materials  has  advanced  manyfold ; 
wood  as  fuel  is  scarcely  considered  in  a  large  part  of  the 
country. 

Natural  Gas  As  a  Fuel 

Where  it  is  found  in  any  special  region,  natural  gas  is 
the  ideal  fuel.  It  has  from  one-and-a-half  to  ten  times 
as  great  heat  value  as  gas  that  is  artificially  produced.  It, 
too,  is  following  rapidly  in  the  wake  of  our  wasted  forests. 
Our  waste  of  it  has  been  criminal.  No  part  of  this;  crime 
of  waste  can  be  condoned  as  was  the  destruction  of  tim- 
ber when  it  gave  way  to  the  plow.  Some  of  the  waste 
resulted  from  ignorance  of  a  way  to  control  the  gas  flow, 
and  from  a  lack  of  pipes  to  carry  it  away. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    11 


Gas  was  first  struck  in  wells  which  were  drilled  for  oil. 
When  gas  was  struck  the  discoverers  did  not  know  what 
to  do  with  it,  or  how  to  control  it.  One  of  the  largest  gas 
wells  in  Pennsylvania, — the  McGuggin  well  in  Washington 
County, — was  set  on  fire,  and  for  months  was  simply  a 
great  geyser  of  flame,  the  roaring  of  which  could  be  heard 
for  miles — the  Mecca  to  which  night  picnic  parties  made 
pilgrimages,  to  see  the  eighth  wonder  of  the  world. 

When  gas  wells  were  drilled  near  a  town  and  the  fluid 
brought  under  control  and  piped  along  the  streets,  the  open 
street  lights  were  great  torches  that  fouled  the  air  and 
wasted  the  gas.  When  used  in  grates  and  furnaces,  it 
was  used  without  thought  of  economy.  As  there  were  no 
meters,  the  family  burning  the  most  gas  was  just  that 
much  ahead.  The  amount  annually  wasted  may  be  rightly 
reckoned  as  a  billion  dollars  worth. 

Now  the  first  gas  wells  are  exhausted.  The  region  of 
production  is  being  pushed  to  the  South  and  Southwest; 
the  day  of  limited  supply  has  come ;  the  day  of  exhaustion 
has  come  in  some  sections  and  is  approaching  in  nearly 
all,  and  the  pipe  lines  now  carrying  natural  gas  must  carry 
artificial  gas,  or  be  useless. 

Oil  As  Fuel 

Oil,  when  properly  burned  in  a  furnace  properly  con- 
structed, is  a  good  fuel.  More's  the  pity  that  it  had  not 
been  less  wastefully  used  and  more  prudently  produced  in 
the  parts  of  the  United  States  in  which  industrial  fuel  is 
in  greatest  demand.  When  wells  were  sunk  in  Western 
Pennsylvania,  which  produced  five  thousand  barrels  a  day 
of  the  best  oil  on  the  market,  there  was  a  mad  rush  to 
drill  and  get  out  all  the  oil  at  once.  As  many  as  thirty 
wells  half-a-mile  deep  were  drilled  on  a  hundred-acre  farm. 
The  market  was  flooded  with  oil.  The  demand  then  was 
not  nearly  so  great  as  it  is  now.  The  best  Pennsylvania 
oil  was  sold  for  fifty  cents  a  barrel,  or  less.  Oil  was  so 
cheap  that  there  was  little  incentive  for  carefulness  in  its 


12  COAL 


use.  Oil-saving  was  more  expensive  than  oil-buying  if  it 
involved  expensive  change  in  methods  of  use. 

Soon  the  great  oil  fields  were  depleted.  Now  the  fields 
that  were  once  the  scene  of  feverish  activity  are  almost 
deserted.  If  a*  new  well  is  put  down  that  produces  a  few 
barrels  a  day,  the  owner  is  satisfied;  if  it  is  a  dry  hole, 
he  is  not  much  surprised.  To  sink  a  well  in  a  nearly  ex- 
hausted field  is,  anyway,  a  gamble.  Fortunately,  new  fields 
have  lately  been  found,  and  new  sources  of  outside  sup- 
ply have  given  a  new  lease  of  life  to  oil  as  a  fuel  supply 
in  some  parts  of  our  country,  but  not  in  the  center  of  the 
great  industrial  regions,  which  at  present  most  need  the 
fuel. 

The  new  oil  supply  will  be  treated  in  connection  with 
coal  auxiliaries. 


CHAPTER  II 

COAL,   THE   PRESENT    FUEL   OF   THE    WORLD 

Coal  in  Time  of  War:  What  It  Did  for  Germany— What  It 
Did  for  the  Allies. 

Coal  in  Time  of  Peace:  Importance  to  England  for  Her 
Industries  and  Export  Trade — Importance  of  England's  Coal 
Export  to  France,  Italy,  and  South  America — Value  of  English 
Coal  to  United  States  When  a  Strike  Limits  Supply. 

The  realization  of  the  all  importance  of  the  coal  re- 
sources of  the  United  States  has  come  to  us  very  slowly. 
In  fact,  the  knowledge  that  we  had  any  to  speak  of  is 
scarcely  a  century  old.  When  King  Charles  II  gave  Will- 
iam Penn;  a  "deed"  to  what  is  now  Pennsylvania,  he  tried 
to  reserve  to  the  Crown  a  share  of  the  valuable  minerals 
in  the  ground.  He  reserved  one-fifth  of  all  the  gold  and 
silver.  He  didn't  think  the  coal  then  as  valuable  as  the 
two  bear-skins  that  Penn  was  to  give  every  year.  In  the 
patents  to  the  land  in  Pennsylvania  given  Ipy  the  Common- 
wealth in  1780  and  1790,  reservation  is  made  of  one-fifth 
of  the  gold  and  silver,  the  grantors  being  all  unconscious 
that  the  land  was  underlaid  with  a  metal  of  great  value 
to  the  State,  and  not  underlaid  with  silver  and  gold. 

A  century  ago, — in  1820, — but  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  tons  of  anthracite  coal  were  shipped  in  a  year  from 
mines  in  Pennsylvania,  and  in  1840  only  four  hundred  and 
sixty-five  thousand  tons  of  bituminous  coal.  As  long  as 
wood  in  abundance  was  available  for  fuel,  as  long  as  the 
rude  water-wheel  ground  out  the  grain,  as  long  as  trains 
of  pack  horses  carried  over  the  mountains  what  the  set- 
tlers produced  and  brought  back  what  they  needed  in  ex- 
change, they  had  little  need  of  any  other  fuel.  The  canoe 
and  raft  on  their  streams,  and  their  wind-driven  sail- 
vessels  sufficed  for  their  commerce.  Now  the  varied  in- 
dustries, the  railroads,  the  steam-driven   boats   and   ships 

13 


14  COAL 


and  the  millions  of  homes  have  increased  the  demands  of 
the  people,  until  anthracite  production  is  nearly  a  hundred 
million  tons  a  year  and  bituminous  more  than  half  a  billion. 
The  National  and  State  governments  have  in  general 
taken  little  interest  in  coal.  They  parted  title  to  almost  all 
the  best  coal  in  the  United  States  along  with  title  to  the 
surface,  never  even  raising  the  question  as  to  whether  it 
was  the  best  thing  to  do.  Now,  when  they  do  awake  to 
the  inquiry,  they  find  it,  if  not  too  late  to  remedy  any  part 
of  the  mistake,  at  least  presenting  a  very  serious  situation. 

Coal  in  War  Time 

Never  had  the  all  importance  of  coal  been  so  impressed 
upon  every  nation  in  the  world  as  during  the  great  World 
War. 

Germany's  Great  Coal  Fields  Fought  Her  Battles  for  Her 

For  years,  Germany's  great  factories  built  about  her 
coal  fields  had  wrought  wi,th  fiendish  skill  and  ingenuity  her 
engines  of  destruction  in  preparation  for  the  slaughter  she 
planned.  For  years  her  chemists  extracted  from  her  coal 
the  explosives  that  shattered  the  shells  and  produced  the 
gases  that  dealt  death  to  her  enemies.  Cut  off  by  blockade, 
had  disaster  come  to  her  coal  mines,  every  munition  fac- 
tory would  have  been  closed,  transportation  of  troops  and 
supplies  paralyzed.  The  struggle  would  have  been  over. 
Her  coal  kept  Holland  neutral, — indeed  friendly, — since 
Germany  furnished  Holland  coal  in  exchange  for  food, — 
and  later  the  Kaiser. 

An  important  part  in  her  efficiency  in  equipment  came 
from  the  byproduct  ovens  of  Belgium  and  Northern  France, 
just  as  the  loss  of  the  mines  was  an  almost  irreparable 
disaster  to  France. 

Not  only  did  Germany's  coal  fight  her  battles  on  land, 
but  her  captured  coal  did  what  fighting  on  sea  her  pirate 
cruisers  wer0  able  to  do.  The  depredations  made  by  such 
German  cruisers  as  the  Emden,  Dresden  and  Kronprins 
Wilhelm,  were  made  possible  by  their  ability  to  take  coal 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    15 


from  their  captured  ships  at  sea.  Just  as  the  submarine 
that  did  such  deadly  work  for  the  Germans  was  an  Ameri- 
can invention,  so  the  device  that  enabled  their  cruisers  to 
coal  from  their  captives  was  an  American  suggestion. 

William  H.  Bechler,  an  officer  in  the  United  States 
Navy,  was*  a  naval  attache  at  Berlin.  He  read  a  paper  in 
1902  describing  his  marine  cableway,  which  coaled  the  bat- 
tleship Massachusetts  from  a  collier  at  sea.  German  papers 
commented  at  large  on  the  paper  and  appealed  to  German 
engineers  to  solve  the  problem.  They  did  solve  ft,  and 
their  cruisers  carried  apparatus  by  which  they  could  take 
coal  from  another  vessel  at  sea,  both  driving  ahead  at  the 
rate  of  ten  knots  an  hour. 

We  had  solved  the  problem,  and  our  colliers  on  the  sea 
were  equivalent  to  the  addition  of  many  destroyers  to  our 
fleet.  Without  being  able  to  coal  at  sea,  each  destroyer 
would  have  been  obliged  to  return  to  a  coaling  station  every 
few  days;  and  while  going  and  coming  would  have  been 
of  no  use  to  the  navy,  but  exposed  especially  to  attack  by 
submarines,  which  made  it  a  point  to  lie  in  wait  to  destroy 
ships  on  the  routes  to  coaling  ports. 

Coal  and  the  Allies 

Coal  was  just  as  essential,  of  course,  to  all  the  other 
nations  engaged  in  the  war. 

One  of  the  greatest  disasters  to  the  Russian  army  was 
caused  by  failure  of  coal  supply  for  their  engines  on  the 
trains  that  were  to  bring  re-enforcements  and  munitions. 

England  was  hard  put  to  it  to  furnish  the  coal  that 
she  must  supply,  if  the  Allies  were  to  win  the  war.  Her 
ships  needed  more  coal  than  ever.  Her  factories  were 
supplying  not  only  her  own  home  needs  and  the  needs  of 
her  own  armies,  but  were  making  guns  and  ammunitions 
for  her  allies.  France  had  lost  her  northern  coal  fields 
with  their  normal  output  of  20,000,000  tons  a  year,  together 
with  factories  in  the  regions  held  by  the  Germans.  Eng- 
land, in  time  of  peace,  sent  20,000,000  tons  to  France ;  now 
France  needed  not  only  her  normal  importation,  but  the 


16  COAL 


increased  demand  for  her  munitions  plants  and  other  fac 
tories,  and  also  to  make  up  the  twenty  millions  that  tin 
German  army  held. 

Italy,  practically  dependent  upon  outside  coal,  almos 
lost  the  war  when  her  munition  and  coal  supply  failed 
The  cry,  "Men  and  guns  and  ships  will  win  the  war !"  wa 
almost  superseded  by  the  cry,  "Coal  will  win  the   war  I' 

Then  in  England  came  the  refusal  to  call  miners  u 
the  colors.  Soldiers  were  even  withdrawn  from  the  arrrr 
to  work  in  the  mines, — a  work  as  important  for  winning 
the  war  as  fighting  in  France.  The  Home  Secretary  an 
nounced : 

"It  has  been  decided,  in  view  of  the  importance  ©f  thi 
national  interest  of  maintaining  the  output  of  coal,  that  n< 
person  employed  underground  in  a  coal  mine  and  no  persoi 
employed  on  the  surface  as  winding  engineer,  pumper 
weighman,  electrician,  or  mechanic  is  to  be  called  upon  fo 
service  in  the  field  without  consent  of  the  Home  Office.' 

In  the  United  States  operators  and  miners  vied  with  on< 
another  in  their  effort  to  furnish  coal  for  battleships,  fo 
transports,  for  soldiers  in  camps,  for  soldiers  overseas,  anc 
for  our  allies.  Everywhere  the  eye  met  the  placard :  "Coa 
will  win  the  war!" 

Coal  in  Time  of  Peace — Coal  Mining  in  England 

When  the  Great  War  was  over  and  England's  soldier 
were  on  their  home  land  again,  there  seemed  to  be  a  feel 
ing  that  coal  was  a  kind  of  wartime  necessity,  and  tha 
now  that  peace  was  come,  strenuous  production  was  no 
needed.  Miners  did  not  work  vigorously  and  efficiently 
and  production  fell  off  greatly.  At  length,  the  miner 
struck  for  higher  wages  and  shorter  hours,  which  mean 
less  production  and  higher  prices.  The  people  of  Englanc 
were  panic-stricken.  Coal  for  their  factories  and  for  ex 
port  lies  at  the  foundation  of  their  ability  to  pay  thei: 
enormous  war  debt,  and  hold  their  place  in  the  world': 
business. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    17 


An  influential  English  paper,  with  almost  a  wail  of 
despair,  exclaimed:  "We  must  have  coal,  and  cheap  coal, 
or  perish  industrially." 

Coal  Mining  in  the  United  States 
When  the  armistice  was  signed,  and  our  soldiers  were 
brought  back  to  the  United  States,  we  ceased  to  talk  or 
think  of  coal,  except  as  we  classed  it  among  the  things 
we  had  to  buy  at  a  higher  price  than  before  the  war.  Coal 
is  among  the  things  we  have,  of  course,  and  having  these 
things,  of  course,  we  cease  to  think  whether  they  are  im- 
portant or  not. 

It  needed  a  new  shock  to  stir  all  the  people  to  realize 
that,  as  at  present  organized,  we  cannot  live  without  coal. 
The  shock  came  in  the  resolution  adopted  by  the  United 
Miners'  Union  that  if  the  demands  made  by  the  workers 
were  not  conceded  they  would  strike  on  a  fixed  day, — that 
nearly  half  a  million  men  would  cease  to  produce  coal'  just 
at  the  beginning  of  winter.  Then  all  the  people  knew 
that  coal  is  not  alone  to  win  wars,  but  is  essential  in  time 
of  peace ;  that  without  it  our  factories  will  stop,  millions 
of  people  will  be  out  of  employment  and  without  the  means 
of  livelihood ;  most  of  our  railroads  will  not  be  operated, 
and  many  of  the  people  will  suffer  or  die  with  cold: 

The  President  called  it  an  "impending  disaster,"  saying 
further : 

When  a  movement  reaches  a  point  where  it  appears  to  in- 
volve practically  the  entire  productive  capacity  of  the  country 
with  respect  to  one  of  the  most  vital  necessities  of  daily  domes- 
tic and  industrial  life,  and  when  the  movement  is  asserted  in 
a  time  and  manner  calculated  to  involve  the  maximum  of  dan- 
ger to  the  public  welfare,  in  this  critical  hour  of  our  country's 
life,  the  public  interest  becomes  the  paramount  consideration. 
The  matters  with  which  we  now  deal  touch  not  only  the  wel- 
fare of  a  class,  but  vitally  concern  the  well  being,  the  comfort, 
the  very  life  of  all  the  people.  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  declare 
that  any  attempt  to  carry  out  the  purpose  of  this  strike,  and 


18  COAL 


thus  to  paralyze  the  industries  of  the  country,  with  the  con- 
sequent suffering  and  distress  of  all  our  people,  must  be  con- 
sidered a  grave  moral  and  legal  wrong  against  the  government 
and  people  of  the  United  States.  I  can  do  nothing  else  than 
to  say  that  the  law  will  be  enforced  and  the  means  will  be 
found  to  protect  the  interests  of  the  nation  in  any  emergency 
that  may  arise  out  of  this  unhappy  business. 


CHAPTER  III 

STRIKE  OF  THE  MINES 

Strike  of  the  Mines:  When  They  Have  No  More  Coal— 
We  Have  Wasted  Our  Coal  in  Production  and  in  Use— Causes 
of  Waste — Cheap  Coal  Land— Fierce  Competition  Due  to  Over- 
production—Financial  Weakness  of  Coal  Companies— Apathy 
of  the  Public— Misleading  Statement  of  Our  "Inexhaustible" 
Supply.     George  Otis   Smith's   Pessimistic  Speech. 

If  the  temporary  reduction  in  the  output  of  coal  in  the 
United  States  is  a  disaster,  what  will  it  be  when  the  pro- 
duction shall  entirely  and  permanently  cease  ? 

During  the  strike  in  1919,  non-union  and  various  union 
mines  worked,  so  that  the  output  was  maintained  at  from 
forty  to  fifty  per  cent  of  normal.  If  a  falling  off  of  fifty 
to  sixty  per  cent  of  normal  production  is  a  calamity,  what 
of  it  when  one  hundred  per  cent  of  production  shall  cease  ? 

No  strike  will  continue  for  long  to  cut  off  the  entire 
coal  supply.  The  people  will  not  stand  for  it  long.  The 
entire  people  would  not  stand  calmly  by  idle  mines  and 
freeze.  Their  helplessness  and  weakness  in  face  of  a  strike 
seem  to  indicate  that  they  would,  but  patience  would  reach 
a  limit. 

However,  there  is  coming  a  worse  disaster  than  a  min- 
ers' strike.  It  is  a  strike  by  the  mines  when  they  have  no 
coal  to  give. 

The  American  people  have  been  spoiled  by  the  abund- 
ance of  our  natural  resources.  We  think  as  little  of  their 
exhaustion  as  of  the  exhaustion  of  the  air.  But  it  is  time 
for  legislators,  statesmen,  and  thoughtful  people  to  take 
stock  of  such  a  vital  necessity  as  coal.  It  is  time  to  ask 
such  a  serious  question  as :  ''What  will  be  the  status  of 
the  nation  when  all  the  coal  in  what  is  now  the  thickly 
settled  regions  of  the  country, — and  what  is  now  the  in- 
dustrial field, — is  exhausted?    How  will  it  affect  the  whole 

10 


20  COAL 


people  and  the  nation  when  the  time  comes,  as  it  will  in 
a  comparatively  short  time  in  the  life  of  a  nation,  when 
all  the  best  coal  in  the  United  States, — in  Pennsylvania, 
West  Virginia,  Ohio,  and  other  Eastern  States, — is  gone,  or 
where  so  little  remains  that  its  production  is  negligible?" 

Of  course,  we  languidly  agree  that  coal  is  not  like  most 
of  our  other  resources,  that  once  exhausted  there  can  be 
no  renewing.  Much  of  our  land  whose  fertility  has  been 
exhausted  by  unscientific  farming,  even  whose  surface  has 
been  seamed  by  the  floods  caused  by  reckless  destruction 
of  the  timber  on  the  hillsides,  may  -be  made  fertile  again 
by  irrigation  and  fertilizing,  or  be  re-forested.  The  farm- 
er's flocks  are  followed  by  other  flocks.  Every  year  a  new 
flock  of  "lambkins  skip  upon  the  hillside" ;  every  year  a 
new  "lowing  herd  winds  slowly  o'er  the  lea,"  but  the  coal 
used  or  wasted  is  never  renewed. 

Yet  this  essential  and  unrenewable  resource  is  being 
used  and  recovered  wastefully.  Our  waste  of  coal  has 
been  reckless  and  indefensible.  Billions  of  tons  have  been 
practically  destroyed  by  our  methods  of  mining,  and  other 
billions  wasted  in  our  unwise  use  of  it  after  it  is  mined. 
Some  of  the  reasons  for  such  waste  may  be  stated  as  fol- 
lows : 

First.    The  Low  Selling  Price  of  Coal  Land 

Jn  the  early  development  of  coal  mining,  in  parts  of 
the  anthracite  region  of  Pennsylvania,  coal  land  containing 
many  beds  of  the  finest  coal  in  the  world  was  sold  at  four 
cents  an  a^re,  or  leased  at  a  rental  of  an  ear  of  corn  a 
year.  In  the  great  bituminous  fields  any  price  received  was 
so  much  money  found  by  the  owners. 

Even  now,  in  some  parts  of  the  country,  coal  land  is 
sold  at  a  price  which,  if  it  does  not  provoke  waste,  does 
not  discourage  it.  If  it  becomes  expensive  to  mine  the 
acres  of  coal  that  lie  on  the  outskirts  of  the  holdings,  the 
mine  is  abandoned  and  a  new  mine  opened.  If,  to  support 
the  roof  so  that  pillars  of  coal  can  be  recovered,  it  costs 
too  much  to  give  the  operator  enough  profit,   the  pillars 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    21 


are  left  undrawn  and  lost  forever.  If  the  roof  is  not 
good,  and  expensive  to  prop,  a  foot  or  two  may  be  left 
at  the  top  to  support  the  roof.  It  is  better  to  lose  the 
coal  than  to  buy  and  place  the  props.  Coal  is  left  at  the 
bottom  for  a  reason  of  expensive  coal.  A  few  tons  lost 
counts  little  on  the  operator's  ledger,  if  it  only  costs  him 
in  the  land  a  very  small  fraction  of  a  cent  a  ton. 

Second.     Unrestricted     Production     and     Consequent 
Fierce  Competition  for  a  Market 

The  coal  mines  already  opened  in  the  United  States 
have  an  annual  capacity  of  more  than  750,000,000  tons. 
In  1918  they  actually  produced  585,883,000  tons,  working 
only  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  days,  much  of  the  time 
lost  being  by  lack  of  cars  or  lack  of  men.  The  normal 
demand  is  now,  in  normal  times,  not  much  above  half  a 
billion  tons.  Ever  since  the  anthracite  strike  in  1902,  when 
production  in  the  bituminous  fields  was  much  stimulated 
and  many  new  mines  opened,  capacity  of  production  has 
been  greater  than  demand.  The  natural  result  has  been 
fierce  competition  for  sales.  The  operator  was  -at  the 
mercy  of  the  buyer. 

The  price  of  coal  was  so  low  most  of  the  time  that  it 
was  not  possible  to  mine  any  but  easy  coal  and  make  a 
profit,  and  not  possible  to  pay  a  decent  wage  to  labor. 

The  average  selling  price  of  coal  in  the  United  States 
for  the  years  1890  to  1900,  inclusive,  was  $1.06  a  ton,  with 
the  highest  value  $1.16  and  the  lowest  95  cents. 

The  average  number  of  days  worked  was  199,  ranging 
from  214  to  178. 

The  average  selling  price  of  coal  in  the  next  decade, 
1901  to  1910,  was  $1.10,  and  that  included  the  year  of 
the  great  anthracite  strike,  when  bituminous  coal  was  high- 
est. In  1909  in  six  States  the  amount  received  for  the 
coal  sold  was  less  than  it  cost  to  produce  it.  The  owners 
got  nothing  on  the  average  for  interest  depletion,  deprecia- 
tion, or  salary  expenses.  In  1914  Illinois  and  Indiana 
operators,  in  an  agreed  statement,  appealed  to  the  President 


22  COAL 


for  permission  to  initiate  a  solution  for  prevailing  condi- 
tions— this  to  be  subject  to  review  by  the  government. 
The  following  are  a  few  excerpts  from  their  appeal: 

The  normal  state  of  this  industry  for  years  has  been  such 
as  to  waste  the  coal  reserve  which  now  insures  the  safety  of 
the  eastern  part  of  the  country,  and  deprives  the  operators  of 
any  hope  of  profit.  .  .  .  The  coal  sells  in  eighteen  states. 
The  business  is  therefore  interstate.  The  operators  are  amen- 
able to  the  anti-trust  laws,  which  they  believe  forbid  any 
co-operation  among  them.  Because  they  cannot  co-operate 
they  cannot  simplify  their  selling  methods  or  reduce  their 
selling  and  operating  costs.     . 

The  mines  are  within  these  two  states  and  the  states  regu- 
late their  operating  methods.  The  effect  of  the  nation's  anti- 
trust laws  is  to  cause  them  to  compete  without  restraint.  This 
has  produced  a  decreasing  selling  price.  The  states'  laws  have 
caused  a  rising  production  cost.  The  rising  cost  of  production 
and  the  falling  selling  price  have  long  since  made  profit  im- 
possible and  now  threatens  the  safety  of  the  whole  business 
structure,  as  well  as  of  the  miners  and  the  public.  [The  requi- 
site investment  in  plant  and  equipment  has  increased  one 
thousand  per  cent  in  twenty  years.]  Enforced  competition  has 
opened  three  mines  where  two  were  needed,  and  employed 
three  men  where  two  were  needed.  These  mines  and  men 
can  find  work  but  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  days  out  of 
three  hundred;  hence  higher  wages  have  to  be  paid  than  the 
production  warrants.  Their  labor  cost  is  93  cents  per  ton, 
selling  price  $1.14  in  Illinois  and  $1.11  a  ton  in  Indiana.  Out 
of  this  margin  must  come  salaries,  selling  costs,  land  deple- 
tion, depreciation,  repairs,  cost  of  materials  used  in  the  mines 
and  eight  or  ten  other  major  expenses.  This  leaves  no  possible 
net  profit.  One  obligation  resting  on  the  operators  is  to  re- 
cover the  pillar  and  top  coal.  It  costs  too  much;  it  cannot  be 
done.  For  every  two  acres  they  exhaust  they  leave  one  in 
the  ground  unrecoverable.  In  Illinois  every  year  twelve  thou- 
sand acres  are  exhausted  instead  of  eight  thousand;  in  Indiana 
three  thousand  instead  of  two  thousand.  In  the  nation  one 
hundred  thousand  acres  instead  of  sixty-five  thousand  are 
exhausted. 

Third.     The  Financial  Weakness  of  Many  Operating 
Companies 

To  make  a  mining  operation  successful,  to  secure  a 
low  cost  operation,  the  mine  must  be  well  equipped.  This 
requires  a  large  outlay  of  money.     Shafts  and  manway 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    23 


must  be  sunk  and,  probably,  concreted.  Expensive  tipple, 
grading,  siding,  expensive  engines,  boilers,  pumps,  fans, 
etc.,  must  be  provided.  It  will  not  pay,  in  general,  to  incur 
these  expenses  unless  a  large  acreage  is  bought  and  a  long 
life  for  the  mine  is  assured.  Too  often  a  large  part  of  the 
money  is  obtained  by  mortgage  or  bonds.  Unseasoned 
bonds  are  not  much  sought  after  by  investors,  and  the 
bonds  bearing  a  high  interest  rate  have  to  be  sold  at  a 
discount.  At  the  outset  the  company  is  burdened  with 
large  fixed  charges.  In  addition,  the  equipment  expense 
not  covered  by  the  money  raised  from  bonds,  and  the 
furnishing  of  working  capital  must  be  provided  for  by 
issuing  stock, — often  too  much  stock  for  the  real  equity 
in  the  property.  A  considerable  time  is  consumed  in  get- 
ting ready  to  operate  commercially.  It  takes  time  to  sink 
shaft  and  erect  tipple  and  install  machinery.  After  the 
coal  is  reached  by  the  shaft,  entries  and  airway  have  to 
be  driven  and  rooms  turned  before  even  a  fair  start  has 
been  made  in  production.  The  output  is  small  for  a  long 
time,  and  costly  to  produce.  In  the  meantimte,  interest 
goes  on.  Soon  stockholders  clamor  for  dividends.  If  the 
mine  is  operated  by  the  owners  themselves,  unless  a  large 
operating  sum  has  been  provided,  the  pinch  of  debt  begins 
to  be  felt.  Miners'  and  operating  expenses  have  to  be 
paid.  The  coal  that  is  sold  may  be  on  slow  payments :  a 
new  company  is  indulgent  to  buyers  in  order  to  make  sales. 
Interest  is  coming  due.  Coal  must  be  put  out.  "Easy" 
coal  must  be  mined.  It  is  wasteful,  but  it  is  a  wild  run 
to  cover,  to  outstrip  the  receiver.  The  receiver  most  likely 
wins  the  race  after  a  short  run.  When  the  new  company 
takes  possession,  it  finds  much  of  the  mine  spoiled,  much 
valuable  coal  hopelessly  lost. 

If  the  equipped  mine  is  operated  under  lease,  the  roy- 
alty has  to  be  large  to  cover  the  owners'  fixed  charges ; 
a  minimum  royalty  payable  by  the  lessee,  whether  earned 
or  not,  is  expected.  The  lessee  is  not  especially  solicitous 
about  the  future  of  the  mine  after  his  lease  expires.  He 
"hogs"  the  coal,  piles  "gob"  against  the  pillars  so  that?  they 


24  COAL 


cannot  be  drawn,  mines  "easy"  coal,  and  wastes  the  coal 
more  recklessly  than  even  the  sheriff-pursued  owner  would 
have  done. 

Fourth.     The  Apathy  of  the  People 

It  may  not  be  using  exactly  the  right  term  to  call  "the 
apathy  of  the  people"  the  cause  of  the  waste  of  coal  in 
mining.  It  is,  no  doubt,  more  accurate  to  say  they  failed 
to  devise  and  apply  a  preventive  or  check  on  waste.  If  the 
whole^  people  had  for  half  a  century  been  as  awake  to  the 
value  of  coal  as  they  were  during  the  Great  War,  they 
would  have  insisted  that  our  government  conserve  our 
supply  and  devise  some  way  to  stop  waste.  So  far  as  they 
in  general  had  any  thought  about  the  matter  at  all  they 
reasoned :  "The  governments  of  the  States  and  United 
States  have  sold  the  coal  with  the  surface  of  the  land. 
The  new  owner  has  paid  his  money  for  the  coal  as  truly 
as  for  the  surface ;  if  he  chooses  to  waste  his  own  prop- 
erty, that  is  his  concern." 

Recent  events  have  aroused  the  people  to  the  fact  that 
they  have  a  paramount  interest,  as  a  nation,  in  the  coal, — 
that  all  the  coal  is,  in  fact,  held  in  trust  for  the  whole 
people ;  that  coal  mining  is  essentially  different  from  sur- 
face farming;  that  coal  mining  is  a  destructive  industry 
as  farming  is  not,  and  that  it  is  doubly  destructive  when 
coal  is  destroyed. 

While  coal  cannot  rightfully  be  taken  from  its  owner 
without  reasonable  compensation,  the  owner  cannot  do 
with  it  exactly  as  he  pleases.  He  cannot  refuse  to  sell 
it  and  thus  freeze  us.  If  the  refusal  to  sell  causes  death, 
he  is  morally  guilty  of  murder.  During  the  war,  if  mine 
owners  had  closed  their  mines  and  refused  to  sell  their 
coal  and  thus  paralyzed  every  energy  that  won  the  war, 
they  woud  have  had  a  rude  awakening.  However,  that 
would  have  been  true  of  the  wheat  owner,  as  well.  In 
time  of  peace  when  miners  refused  to  work,  and  so  far  as 
possible  hindered  others  from  working,  if  this  refusal  to 
work  and   hindering  others    from   working  caused   death, 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    25 


they  were  guilty  of  murder.  If  men  are  able  to  work 
and  will  not  work,  and  that  refusal  causes  death,  then 
they  are  murderers. 

If  we  are  awake  to  the  value  of  coal  to  us,  how  long 
will  we  stay  awake?  We  are  awake  to-day  and  asleep 
to-morrow.  If  there  is  a  shortage  of  coal,  we  know  that 
it  is  because  the  coal  is  not  taken  from  the  ground.  As 
to  the  future,  there  will  always  be  coal  in  the  ground 
ready  to  be  dug.  Anyway,  "sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the 
good  thereof." 

If  we  are  told  that  wasteful  mining  methods  and  waste- 
ful use  are  destroying  what,  in  fact,  is  held  in  trusit  for 
us  and  by  us,  we  would  express  our  real  indifference 
by  saying:  "We  will  have  enough  for  us  and  to  spare." 
That  coal  is  at  the  base  of  our  commercial  and  industrial 
supremacy  arouses  us  very  little.  Besides,  our  coal  is 
"inexhaustible."  Our  "inexhaustible  resources"  rings  froi» 
every  Fourth  of  July  platform :  we  can  feed  the  world,  we 
can  coal  the  world,  we  can  whip  the  world.  But  not  only 
are  we  lulled  to  quiet  by  these  beautiful  writings  and 
speeches,  but  by  misleading  statements  supposed  to  come 
from  sources  which  we  ought  to — and  do — respect. 

Fifth.     Misleading  Statement  of  the  Amount  of  Our 
Coal  Resources 

The  rhetoric  of  the  orator  and  the  boast  of  the  per- 
fervid  American  are  generally  taken  at  a  discount.  But 
when  they  quote  so  respectable  an  authority  as  the  Geo- 
logical survey  of  the  United  States  everybody  takes  notice. 
When  they  say  that  the  Geological  Survey  estimates  that 
the  coal  supply  will  last  four  thousand  to  six  thousand 
years,  the  average  hearer  does  not  trouble  himself  to  ask : 
"Where  is  the  coal ;  where  will  our  posterity  have  to  go  to 
get  it ;  what  kind  of  coal ;  how  thick  are  the  veins ;  how 
deep  will  they  have  to  go  to  get  them?"  He  thinks  it 
means  that  the  regions  that  are  now  producing  good  coal — 
such  as  Pennsylvania,  West  Virginia,  Ohio,  and  other 
Eastern  States — will  be  mining  coal  just  as  they  are  now 


26  COAL 

four  to  six  thousand  years  hence.  If  so,  why  trouble  our 
brains  about  conservation.  The  end  of  the  world  will, 
maybe,  come  about  the  time  the  coal  is  exhausted;  if  not, 
the  ingenuity  of  our  American  scientist  will  discover  a 
substitute.  Why  bother,  anyway,  about  our  so  distant  rela- 
tives ? 

Our  confidence  in  the  accuracy  of  these  optimistic  state- 
ments is  somewhat  shaken  by  this  speech  lately  made  by 
George  Otis  Smith,  head  of  the  Geological  Survey,  who  is 
certainly  able  to  say  in  what  sense  those  optimistic  reports 
are  meant: 

America's  coal  is  her  pride.  More  than  half  of  the  world's 
estimated  supply  is  in  the  territory  of  the  United  States.  Our 
coal  in  1918  constituted  forty-eight  per  cent  of  the  coal  that 
went  into  the  world's  bins.  That  percentage  measures  the 
share  of  our  coal  industry  in  the  world's  business,  for  rela- 
tively few  of  the  wheels  of  modern  industry  and  commerce 
can  turn  unless  coal  furnishes  the  energy.  However,  the  in- 
heritor of  great  wealth  often  proves  a  spendthrift,  and  pride 
goes  before  destruction.  So,  our  first  impression  as  to  Amer- 
ica's wealth  may  be  too  optimistic,  and  we  may  need  to  think 
less  of  the  millions  and  millions  of  tons  of  coal  which  we  are 
told  lie  awaiting  our  needs  over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land,  and  to  ask  for  more  details  as  to  where  this  coal  is,  and 
how  much  of.'  it  remains  in  the  older  mining  districts.  Before 
we  indulge  in  mental  arithmetic  in  figuring  out  the  life  of  our 
coal  resources,  we  may  as  well  set  down  the  broad  fact  that 
the  best  and  most  accessible  coal  is  mined  first.  From  this 
premise  follows  the  practical  prophecy  that  with  the  passing 
of  time  in  our  rapid  industrial  expansion,  we  may  expect  for 
our  future  coal  output  decreasing  quality  and  increasing  cost. 

Let  us  try  to  picture  the  extent  to  which  we  have  mined  our 
best  coal,  and  also  the  rate  at  which  we  are  using  up  the  fuel 
resources  upon  which  so  many  industries  are  founded.  I  have 
had  figures  compiled  for  me  which  present  the  available  facts 
regarding   typical    coal   fields. 

First.  The  Pittsburg  coal  bed.  If  it  is  mined  at  the  present 
rate,  the  exhaustion  of  this  coal  bed,  the  largest  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, must  be  measured  by  the  span  of  a  single  generation ; 
at  least  we  can  see  the  peak  of  production  close  at  hand,  if 
indeed,  it  has  not  already  been  passed,  and  long  before  the 
end  of  this  century  coal  mining  in  the  Pittsburg  field  will  be 
a  memory  except  where  a  mine  here  and  there  is  working  on 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    27 


outcrop  coal,  or  pillars  or  odds  and  ends  left  behind  in  the 
big  days  of  Pittsburg  coal. 

Second.  Even  when  we  turn  to  examine  a  less  nearly  ex- 
hausted coal  field,  such  as  the  Pocahontas  field  in  Virginia 
and  West  Virginia,  we  find  that  the  increasing  rate  of  output 
tends  to  cut  down  the  earlier  and  more  optimistic  calculation 
of  expectancy  of  life.  Expressed  in  human  units,  the  estimates 
for  the  Pocahontas  field  are  reduced  from  four  or  five  genera- 
tions to  three,  or  even  two.  And  these  are  the  fields  which 
are  regarded  as  our  choicest  industrial  coals. 

In  the  coal  fields  of  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois  the  outlook 
is  better,  but  the  coal  is  poorer.  In  these  states  even  without 
allowing  for  the  increased  duty  placed  upon  their  coal  as  the 
Eastern  fields  are  approaching  exhaustion,  we  may  put  the 
expectancy  of  life  at  a  few  centuries. 

These  National  resources  are  of  value  only  as  they  are  used, 
but  no  business  man  shuts  his  eyes  to  the  rate  at  which  the 
stock  of  raw  material  in  his  storehouse  is  being  depleted. 

This  estimate  of  the  expectancy  of  the  life  of  the  East- 
ern coal  field  seems  rather  too  pessimistic  for  Pennsylvania 
and  the  Virginias  but  too  liberal  for  Indiana  and  Illinois. 
Scholl,  several  years  ago,  estimated  that  the  coal  of  Il- 
linois will  be  practically  exhausted  in  two  hundred  years, 
if  no  additional  demand  be  made  upon  it  from  the  ex- 
hausted Eastern  fields.  If  it  is  true  that  in  a  century  the 
coal  that  was  formerly  supplied  by  Pennsylvania  and  Vir- 
ginia will  be  exhausted  and  its  place  has  to  be  partially 
taken  by  Illinois  coal,  the  two  hundred  years  will  be  greatly 
reduced.  We  are  surprised  to  read  the  statement  by  the 
head  of  the  Geological  Survey  that  Pennsylvania  coal  will 
be  merely  a  memory  in  less  than  a  century,  while  we  have 
been  constantly  regaled  with  the  flourish  of  four  thousand 
to  six  thousand  years  of  coal  life.  Certainly  the  Geological 
Survey  must  be  misquoted,  or  George  Otis  Smith,  the 
orator,  must  be  talking  of  a  different  matter  than  Smith, 
the  director. 

Let  us  turn,  then,  to  the  latest  estimate  actually  made 
by  the  Survey,  in  order  to  see  what  we  may  really  expect, 
if  it  is  reliable. 


CHAPTER  IV 

COAL  RESOURCES  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

ESTIMATED  BY 

THE  GEOLOGICAL  SURVEY 

Estimate  Amount  of  Coal  Originally  in  the  Ground— Esti- 
mate Includes  All  Kinds  of  Coal  Down  to  Depth  of  Six  Thou- 
sand Feet,  in  Veins  Fourteen  Inches  and  More  in  Thickness, 
Having  Ash  Thirty  Per  Cent  and  Less — Ways  of  Estimating 
Life  of  the  Coal  Supply — Rate  of  Consumption  Continue  As  At 
Present:  Time,  Three  Thousand  to  Four  Thousand  Years — 
Rate  of  Increase  of  Consumption  Continue  As  for  Last  Twenty 
Years :  Time,  a  Century  or  Two — Parker's  Probability  Curve — 
Estimate  of  No  Value  in  Determining  Length  of  Our  Indus- 
trial or  Commercial  Supremacy — Agree  That  Our  Best  Coal 
Will  Be  Exhausted  in  a  Century. 

1.     Estimate  of  the  Amount  of  Coal  Originally  in  the 
Ground 

The  estimate  of  the  Geological  Survey  includes  the 
"total  quantity  of  coal  that  ever  will  be  mined  in  the 
United  States." 

Marius  R.  Campbell,  in  Professional  Paper  100,  issued 
by  the  United  States  Geological  Survey,  thus  explained 
the  method  they  pursued : 

"In  undertaking  to  make  an  estimate  of  the  original 
tonnage  of  coal  in  the  ground,  certain  assumptions  must 
be  made  as  a  foundation,  and  the  results  obtained  will  de- 
pend largely  upon  these  assumptions.  The  three  principal 
assumptions  are:  (1)  minimum  thickness  of  bed  of  the 
different  ranks  and  grades  of  coal  that  can  be  mined;  (2) 
maximum  depth  to  which  mining  may  be  carried  in  the 
different  ranks,  and  (3)  maximum  percentage  of  ash  that 
may  be  permitted  in  the  different  ranks  of  coal.  In  at- 
tempting to  make  estimate  of  the  original  content  of  the 
different  fields  of  the  United  States  the  Geological  Survey 
decided  that  it  would  be  a  waste  of  money  and  time  to 

28 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    29 


attempt  to  make  estimates  based  on  present  mining  prac- 
tice in  the  United  States,  for  such  estimates  would  be  mis- 
leading in  that  they  would  not  represent  the  total  quantity 
of  coal  that  undoubtedly  will  be  made  available  in  the 
future.  With  this  point  in  mind  it  was  decided  to  attempt 
to  estimate  the  total  quantity  of  coal  that  ever  zvill  be  mined 
in  the  United  States.  In  doing  so,  the  present  mining 
pracice  throughout  the  world  was  considered,  and  the 
assumptions  regarding  maximum  depth,  minimum  thick- 
ness, and  maximum  impurities  were  based  upon  present 
practice  in  the  world.  But,  in  general,  the  limits  now  ob- 
served were  exceeded,  because  it  is  almost  certain  that 
the  future  will  go  far  beyond  the  present  operations." 

As  the  deepest  coal  mines  in  the  world  (in  Belgium) 
reach  a  depth  of  about  four  thousand  feet,  and  as  shafts 
for  copper  and  other  metals  have  been  sunk  to  depths 
below  five  thousand  feet,  it  was  thought  that  future  coal 
mining  might  be  carried  to  a  depth  of  six  thousand  feet. 
But  in  order  to  meet  varied  requirements,  two  limits  were 
set,  one  at  a  depth  of  three  thousand  feet  for  easily  recov- 
erable coal,  and  the  other  at  a  depth  of  six  thousand  feet. 

Similarly,  the  minimum  thickness  of  coal  bed  mined 
in  the  United  States  is  about  fifteen  inches;  therefore, 
fourteen  inches  were  taken  as  the  minimum  of  high-rank 
coals  for  estimating  the  original  tonnage  in  the  several 
fields.  The  minimum  thickness  varies  according  to  the 
rank  of  the  coal,  being  about  two  feet  in  sub-bituminous 
coal  and  three  feet  in  lignite. 

The  maximum  percentage  of  ash  permissible  was  thirty 
per  cent,  but  it  is  questionable  whether  it  would  not  better 
be  placed  at  twenty-five  per  cent. 

Basing  the  coal  supply  on  these  assumptions,  maximum 
depth  three  thousand  feet,  minimum  thickness  of  vein  four- 
teen inches,  maximum  percentage  of  ash  thirty  per  cent, 
and  the  best  information  obtainable  as  to  area,  they  esti- 
mate the  original  content  to  be  3,553,637,100,000  short  tons. 

Estimating  coal   beds   of   like   character   down   to   six 


30  COAL 


thousand  feet,  the  content  is  placed  at  4,231,352,000,000 
short  tons. 

2.     Estimates  of  the  Life  of  the  Coal  Resources  of  the 
United  States 

Having  estimated  the  original  content  of  the  coal  areas 
of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  determine  the  probable 
life  of  the  coal,  we  must  fix  upon  some  rate  of  depletion. 

Three  guesses  were  made  by  the  Geological  Survey  for 
the  purposes  of  determining  the  life  of  the  coal. 

First.  Suppose  the  Present  Rate  of  Consumption  to 
Continue  Till  All  the  Coal  Is  Exhausted. 

The  depletion  at  present,  including  waste,  is  at  least  a 
billion  tons  each  year.  At  that  rate,  3,200,000,000,000  tons 
would  last  thirty-two  hundred  years,  and  4,000,000,000,000 
tons  would  last  four  thousand  years.  These  are  the  esti- 
mates that  the  public  generally  attributes  to  the  Geological 
Survey. 

Second.  Suppose  the  Rate  of  Output  to  Continue  Each 
Decade,  to  Increase  At  the  Same  Rate  At  Which  it  Has 
Increased  in  the  Last  Two  Decades. 

This  assumption  leads  to  a  quite  absurd  conclusion. 
In  the  last  twenty  years  the  coal  output  has  increased 
threefold.  If  the  output  increases  threefold  in  the  next 
twenty  years,  it  will,  including  waste,  be  three  billion  tons 
in  1940.  Continuing  to  increase  at  that  rate,  trebling  every 
twenty  years,  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  it  would 
reach  the  enormous  depletion  of  3,270,000,000,000  tons  a 
year.  That  is,  the  calculated  output  in  the  year  2070  would 
be  as  great  as  all  the  estimated  coal  originally  in  the  ground 
down  to  three  thousand  feet.  Of  course,  the  supply  would 
be  exhausted  long  before  that,  in  not  more  than  seventy- 
five  years. 

Third.    E.  W.  Parker's  Forecast. 

In  1908  E.  W.  Parker  attempted  to  forecast  the  time 
when  coal  production  in  the  United  States  would  reach  a 
maximum,  and  what  the  annual  production  would  be  at 
that  time. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    31 


He  grouped  the  production  by  decades,  from  1835  up 
to  1908,  and  plotted  these  groups,  thus  making  a  curve 
of  past  production.  Then,  from  the  law  of  increase  that 
appeared  in  this  past  production  curve,  he  continued  the 
curve  and  found  that  it  reached  a  maximum  in  2055,  when 
the  production  will  be  five  times  the  present  output.  After 
the  maximum  has  been  reached,  owing  to  increased  cost 
of  haulage  and  hoisting  from  deep  shafts  and  working 
thin  veins,  the  production  would  gradually  decrease.  In 
a  way  thus  briefly  outlined  he  estimated  the  time  limit  of 
all  coal,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent, — at  two  hundred  and 
thirty-five  years. 

Campbell,  in  commenting  on  these  estimates,  says: 

"The  fact  must  be  remembered,  that  the  bulk  of  the 
coal  being  mined  to-day,  is  the  best  in  the  country,  and 
that  before  long,  perhaps  within  fifty  years,  much  of  the 
high-grade  coal  will  be  exhausted." 

In  another  part  of  his  report  he  says : 

The  great  bulk  of  the  coal  of  this  country  is  low-rank 
bituminous,  lignite  and  sub-bituminous,  and  the  high-rank 
coals  are  relatively  scarce.  This  is  an  important  point  in 
conservation,  as  it  means  that  our  best  coals  will  be  the  first 
to  be  exhausted,  and  that  such  exhaustion  may  occur  in  the 
not  very  distant  future.  The  best  steaming  coal,  the  semi- 
bituminous,  is  limited  practically  to  two  eastern  provinces, 
and  the  exhaustion  of  this  coal  will  be  a  greater  calamity  to 
the  country  than  the  loss  of  all  the  anthracite,  for  it  is  adapted 
to  more  uses  and  has  greater  efficiency. 

This  estimate  by  the  Geological  Survey  has  been  dis- 
cussed at  considerable  length  because  it  has  been  used 
so  extensively  and  ignorantly  to  the  misleading  of  the 
people  in  general,  and  being  misquoted  and  distorted,  has 
so  minimized  the  gravity  of  the  coal  problem  that  legis- 
lators and  statesmen  have  not  thought  there  is  a  coal 
problem. 

We  find,  then,  that  this  estimate  is: 

First,  An  Entirely  Academic  Estimate 

It  has  no  value  in  determining  the  duration  of  our  in- 
dustrial and  commercial  supremacy  among  the  nations  of 


32  COAL 


the  world,  nor  even  our  industrial  and  economic  life.  The 
subject  would  have  more  vital  interest  for  us  if  it  were 
divided  into  three  divisions : 

1.  The  division  lying  east  and  south  of  the  Ohio  River 
and  Ohio,  and  east  of  the  Mississippi  River,  (a)  The 
present  content  of  that  field  is  known  to  a  fair  approxi- 
mation, (b)  The  annual  depletion  is  known,  and  if  we 
assume  that  the  present  rate  continues  till  the  coal  is  ex- 
hausted, the  problem  is  fairly  definite,  (c)  The  length  of 
life  is  likely  to  be  so  small  that  any  assumed  law  of  in- 
crease will  not  be  hard  to  apply.  If  George  Otis  Smith 
is  right,  the  answer  will  be  a  century. 

2.  The  division  hang  north  and  west  of  the  Ohio  River 
and  the  Pennsylvania  line,  and  east  of  the  Mississippi.  As 
much  is  known  about  that;  as  about  Division  1,  and  our 
answer  will  be  two  centuries. 

3.  The  great  coal  fields  of  the  West.  We  are  know- 
ing every  year  more  about  the  coal  of  the  Far  West.  It 
will  be  a  fruitful  field  for  the  speculation  of  the  Geological 
Survey;  but  at  present  the  Divisions  1  and  2  are  of  para- 
mount interest.  Apply  the  assumptions  made  by  the  Survey 
to   Division    1  : 

(a)     The  three  thousand  to  six  thousand  depth  limit 

Any  coal  counted  in  the  estimate  by  the  Geological  Survey 
below  one  thousand,  was  not  found  in  Division  1.  In  the 
bituminous  field  of  Western  Pennsylvania  the  depth  of 
the  Pittsburgh  coal  varies  from  zero  to  seven  hundred 
feet,  average  about  four  hundred  feet.  The  other  veins, 
where  they  are  worth  considering,  are  not  on  an  average 
any  deeper.  In  West  Virginia,  the  Pottsville  veins  are 
from  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  five  hundred  feet  below 
the  surface.  There  is  no  vein  that  is  one  thousand  feet 
deep  in  the  Appalachian  coal  field.  So  it  is  evident  that 
any  coal  counted  by  the  Geological  Survey  below  one  thou- 
sand feet  must  have  been  in  other  fields  than  Division  1. 

Any  coal  counted  by  the  Survey  below  one  thousand 
feet  was  not  found  in  Division  2. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    33 


In  Ohio  the  coal  is  not  deeper  than  in  Pennsylvania  and 
Virginia.  In  Indiana  it  varies  from  stripping  coal  to  six 
hundred  feet.  In  Illinois  very  little  of  the  coal  is  one 
thousand  feet  in  depth,  but  most  of  it  two  hundred  to 
five  hundred  feet.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  great 
bulk  of  coal  included  in  this  estimate  is  poor  coal  and  lignite. 

(b)  Thickness  down  to  fourteen  inches.  It  is  safe 
to  say  that  no  coal  vein  as  thin  as  fifteen  inches  is  now 
operated  commercially  except  in  some  parts  of  the  an- 
thracite field,  or  where  the  thin  vein  is  separated  from 
another  vein  by  such  a  thin  stratum  of  rock  that  the  two 
can  be  worked  together. 

The  operator  who  would  sink  a  shaft  six  thousand  feet 
deep,  with  the  hope  of  working  a  fourteen-inch  vein  of 
coal,  in  the  first  place  wouldn't  find  any  such  vein  in  any 
region ^that  is  now  being  mined,  and  in  the  second  place 
could  not  work  it  if  he  did.  The  expense  of  sinking  shaft 
and  manyway  six  thousand  feet, — or  three  ithousand  feet, 
for  that  matter, — the  expense  of  brushing  and  hauling  out 
the  rock  that  must  be  taken  from  the  top  or  bottom  of 
the  vein  in  order  that  it  could  be  operated  at  all,  ventilating 
and  cooling  a  temperature  of  120  to  140  degrees,  the  small 
output,  the  high  wages  that  must  be  paid  to  induce  men 
to  work,  is  so  great  that  it  seems  to  us  absurd  to  include 
it  in  any  estimate. 

Second,  Value  of  Geological  Survey's  Estimate 

The  Geological  Survey  does  not  treat  its  estimate  in 
the  serious  way  in  which  it  is  generally  and  naturally  taken 
by  those  who  read  the  quoted  statement:  "Coal  will  last 
four  thousand  years." 

Campbell  says  : 

"The  high-grade  coal  may  not  last  more  than  fifty 
years."  "The  high-rank  coals  are  relatively  scarce."  Ex- 
haustion may  occur  in  the  near   future. 

George  Otis  Smith,  head  of  the  Survey,  says: 

"The  Eastern  field  will  be  exhausted  in  one,  two,  or 
three  generations." 


34  GOAL 


No  doubt,  coal  will  be  mined  in  the  United  States  for 
many, — perhaps  thousands, — of  years.  Coal  will  be  mined 
in  Pennsylvania,  West  Virginia,  and  Ohio,  long  after  the 
main  part  of  the  coal  has  been  depleted  and  industrial  and 
commercial  supremacy,  as  far  as  they  depend  on  coal, 
have  passed  from  us. 

Coal  in  veins  too  thin  to  be  considered  now  will  be 
mined  at  very  high  cost.  Poor  coal  and  lignite  will  be 
burned  in  byproduct  ovens,  or  in  other  ways  not  now 
known. 

Aside  from  the  fact  that  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  the 
coal  we  consume  or  export  comes  from  our  best  coal,  is 
the  disturbing  fact  that  parts  of  the  field  in  which  we  were 
counting  on  good  coal  are  found  to  be  barren  of  coal. 
Professor  S.  C.  White  says  of  one  such  field : 

"We  must  accept  the  fact  that  at  least  six  counties  in 
West  Virginia,  in  which  the  Pittsburg  vein  of  coal  was 
supposed  to  exist,  are  entirely  without  the  vein." 

In  regions  that  are  often  reported  as  having  a  large 
number  of  veins  there  are  often  found  to  be  not  more  than 
two  or  three,  more  generally  but  one  really  workable  vein. 
A  stump  orator,  a  promoter,  or  even  an  honest  man,  tells 
us  that  West  Virginia  has  twenty  veins  of  coal.  Natur- 
ally, the  hearer  expects  to  find  twenty  workable  veins,  one 
above  the  other.  He  is  surprised  when  presented  with  the 
record  of  borings  that  have  been  made,  which  show  that 
the  veins  run  from  black  shale,  a  mere  trace,  a  few  inches 
thick,  one  foot,  two  feet,  with  large  strata  of  rock  inter- 
vening, and  only  one  or  two  workable  veins. 


CHAPTER  V 

WHAT  CAUSES  ARE  AT  WORK  TO  PROMOTE  COAL  CONSERVATION 

Low  Price  of  Coal  Land  Partially  Cured — Over  Capacity  of 
Mines  Still  a  Menace — Mines  Have  More  Expensive  Equipment 
Than  Before  the  War — Good  Coal  Land  Soon  Will  Be  Dear 
and  Scarce — Competition  of  Sellers  Will  Cease,  for  Demand 
Will  Exceed  Supply — Weak  Companies  Will  Be  Eliminated — 
Four  Classes  of  Coal  Land  to  Be  Considered:  Coal  Land  Held 
for  Government  Use — Coal  Land  Leased  for  Mining  Commercial 
Coal — Coal  Land  in  Private  Hands  That  Needs  Regulation — 
Coal  Land  Not  Needing  Regulation. 

Having  (1)  discussed  the  importance  of  coal  to  us  for 
military  efficiency  and  for  our  industrial  and  commercial 
life  and  supremacy;  (2)  having  shown  that  coal  is  basic, 
and  that  all  the  people  have  such  claim  upon  our  coal  sup- 
ply that  private  holders  cannot  do  with  it  as  they  please, 
cannot  at  their  pleasure  withhold  it  from  the  people,  must 
not  sell  it  at  an  exorbitant  price,  must  not  waste  it  with 
impunity,  that  labor  must  not  refuse  to  produce  it  and 
hinder  others  from  producing  it;  (3)  having  shown  that 
our  good  coal  easily  and  cheaply  won,  is  now  being  mined 
almost  to  the  exclusion  of  the  poorer  coal,  and  that  there- 
fore our  good  coal  is  soon  (measured  in  the  life  of  a 
nation)  to  be  exhausted ;  (4)  having  shown  that  much 
coal  has  been  lost  in  mining, — one  and  a  half  tons  for  every 
ton  of  anthracite  produced  prior  to  1893,  and  nearly  as 
much  bituminous  according  to  the  report  of  the  Commis- 
sion on  waste  in  Pennsylvania,  it  is  worth  while  to  ask, 
and  all  the  nation  ought  to  ask:  (a)  Have  all  the  causes 
of  waste  been  eliminated,  or  if  not  all,  hozv  many  of  them? 

Some  of  the  causes  which  promoted  waste  have  been 
given  us : 

( 1 )     Low  Cost  of  Coal  Land 

In  all  the  bituminous  coal  fields  there  are  still  very  cheap 
coal  lands  for  sale ;  but  in  a  considerable  part  of  the  East- 


36  COAL 


ern  fields,  coal  land  is  now  held,  or  sold  at  so  high  a  price 
that  the  owner  cannot  afford  to  waste  his  coal. 

Veins  that  were  formerly  condemned  as  being  too  thin 
to  operate  profitably  are  being  worked,  and  abandoned 
mines  are  being  reopened,  where  they  have  not  been  to- 
tally ruined  in  their  former  working.  This  is  true  in  the 
anthracite  field  and  in  some  of  the  coking  fields.  The 
author  knows  of  an  operation  that  originally  consisted  of 
only  thirty-three  acres  of  coking  coal,  which  cost  three 
thousand  dollars  an  acre,  and  which  required  the  making 
of  a  narrow-gauge  railroad  of  several  miles  to  reach  it. 
Every  ton  of  that  coal  will,  no  doubt,  be  mined.  But  large 
acreage  has  been  bought  at  from  ten  to  forty  or  fifty  dol- 
lars an  acre,  and  large  acreage  of  good  coal  still  offered 
at  those  prices. 

(2)     Destructive  Competition 

This  has  been  one  of  the  capital  causes  of  waste.  Has 
its  threat  been  eliminated?  The  capacity  of  all  our  coal 
mines  is  2,715,000  tons  a  day.  If  they  would  operate  three 
hundred  days  in  the  year,  as  the  mines  in  Belgium  often 
do,  the  output  would  be  814,500,000  tons.  If  they  operate 
only  two  hundred  and  fifty  days  in  the  year,  the  output  is 
678,500,000  tons.  The  market  demand  now  is  not  more 
than  half  a  billion  to  550,000,000  tons  a  year.  The  surplus 
capacity  is.  therefore,  at  least  125,000,000  tons  a  year.  The 
result  is  either  a  price-cutting,  to  try  to  force  this  surplus 
on  an  unwilling  market,  or  a  restriction  of  output  for  lack 
of  orders.    Either  way  promotes  waste,  because : 

First.  A  company  that  secures  enough  orders  at  a 
too  low  price,  in  order  to  keep  its  mine  operating  a  large 
part  of  the  time,  must  mine  "easy"  coal  wastefully,  and 
sacrifice  coal  that  costs  high  to  mine. 

Second.  The  company  that  is  thus  cheated  of  its  fair 
proportion  of  the  orders,  because  it  will  not  sell  below 
normal  cost,  is,  of  course,  compelled  to  work  few  days 
in  the  month.  Idle  time  is  costly  time.  Overhead  charges, 
fixed  charges,  salaries,  pumping,  depreciation,  go  on.    Coal 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    37 

sold  at  what  would  be  a  fair  profit,  if  the  mine  operated 
all  the  time  and  mined  all  coal  carefully,  will  now  net  the 
operator  a  loss.  Some  element  of  cost  must  be  eliminated. 
The  only  resource  seems  to  be  to  mine  "easy"  coal  waste- 
fully  and  to  refuse  to  mine  coal  that  is  costly  to  win. 

The  way  in  which  a  radical  change  in  demand  and  a 
sudden  increase  in  surplus,  with  its  increase  of  compe- 
tition, promoted  waste  had  many  illustrations  at  the  close 
of  the  Great  War.  A  typical  example  is  furnished  by  a 
large  operating  company  in  Indiana.  It  had  been  oper- 
ating all  its  mines  during  the  war,  and  since  the  entire 
output  could  be  sold,  even  at  a  low  price,  it  had  profit 
enough  so  that  all  its  high-cost  coal  as  well  as  low-cost 
coal  was  mined.  When  the  armistice  was  signed,  demand 
suddenly  dropped.  The  company  could  not  operate  all  its 
mines  all  the  time.  Selling  price  was  not  advanced,  pro- 
duction cost  was  increased.  A  number  of  its  mines  had 
a  considerable  acreage  unmined  at  the  outskirts  of  its 
holdings.  This  could  have  been  mined  profitably  by  run- 
ning all  the  time,  but  if  mined  now,  it  will  be  at  a  loss. 
The  mines  were  dismantled.  The  coal  that  was  costly  to 
mine  was  left  and  irrevocably  lost. 

(3)     Have  Weak  Mines  Been  Made  Stronger  By  the  War? 

We  have  given  the  financial  weakness  of  many  mining 
companies  as  one  of  the  causes  of  waste.  Has  the  war 
cured  this  weakness?  Many  weak  companies  have  been 
made  weaker  and  many  stronger  companies  are  less  able 
to  engage  in  the  battle  of  fierce  competition.  During  the 
war  every  mine  operator  was  urged,  even  commanded,  to 
increase  his  output  to  the  limit.  To  get  large  output  he 
must  buy  and  install  more  machinery.  For  this  he  had 
to  pay  from  two  hundred  to  five  hundred  per  cent  advance 
over  former  prices.  He  was  not  allowed  to  sell  his  coal 
at  a  price  that  would  pay  off  this  extra  expense  during  the 
war.  At  the  end  of  the  war  he  had  a  much  more  costly 
equipment  than  at  the  beginning.  If  he  could  make  a  large 
enough  profit,  he  might  be  able  in  time  to  cover  this  extra 


38  COAL 


cost  with  the  profit.  The  capacity  of  production,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  greater  than  demand.  He  cannot  make  a 
redeeming  profit  against  such  competition  as  he  will  meet. 
He  is  confronted  with  the  old,  old  problem  of  pre-war 
times.  Will  it  cost  him  less  to  shut  down  his  mine  and 
save  his  coal,  or  will  it  cost  him  less  to  pay  for  mining 
the  coal  and  give  i't  to  the  consumer, — or  pay  him  for  taking 
it?  If  he  decides  to  operate,  he  reduces  the  cost  as  much 
as  he  can.  High-cost  coal  will  be  left  in  the  mine.  It 
may  as  well  be  left  in  the  mine  as  to  be  recovered  at  high 
cost  and  given  away  with  a  bonus.  This  is  not  an  over- 
drawn picture,  but  one  which  everyone  conversant  with 
the  coal  industry  has  seen  drawn  many  times.  The  hun- 
dreds of  wrecked  coal  companies,  even  large,  apparently 
strong  companies,  in  the  past  testify  to  the  same  thing. 
How  can  the  future  do  better? 

(4)     Will  These  Causes  of  Loss  Cure  Themselves? 

1.  The  time  will  come  in  the  near  future  when  no 
good  coal  land  will  be  cheap  enough  to  waste.  Coal  land 
containing  good  coal  will  be  dear  and  hard  to  find.  Any 
fortunate  owner  will  be  unwilling  to  waste  his  good  coal. 

2.  The  time  will  come  when  strong  competition  be- 
tween sellers  of  good  coal  will  cease.  The  competition  will 
be  between  buyers,  bidding  against  each  other,  the  unsuc- 
cessful contenting  himself  as  best  he  may  with  poor  coal. 

3.  All  weak  companies  will  be  eliminated.  Receivers 
and  strong  companies  will  cure  this  cause.  Cost  of  plant 
and  cost  of  production  will  do  in  the  bituminous  field  what 
it  has  already  done  in  the  anthracite  field. 

This  day  will  come,  though  all  avoidable  waste  and 
loss  are  stopped  and  all  possible  conservation  be  secured. 
An  aroused  public  should  not  allow  useless  waste  and  loss 
to  hasten  that  "doleful"  day. 

If  what  has  been  said  is  true,  the  coal  problem  is  a 
problem  worthy  of  the  most  serious  thought  by  the  most 
senous-minded  men. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    39 


The  entire  coal  field  naturally  divides  itself,  economic- 
ally, into  four  divisions :  ( 1 )  Coal  land  held  by  the  United 
States  government,  for  the  exclusive  use  of  the  coal  for 
its  battleships  and  other  ships.  (2)  Coal  land  held  by  the 
government  and  operated  directly  or  by  lease  for  mining 
commercial  coal.  (3)  Coal  land  in  the  possession  of  pri- 
vate owners,  which  needs  control.  (4)  Coal  land  in  pri- 
vate ownership  which  is  now  operated  skilfully,  scientific- 
ally, and  economically. 


CHAPTER  VI 

GOVERNMENT    COAL    LAND    HELD    FOR    ITS    EXCLUSIVE    USE 

"NAVY"    COAL    LAND BATTLESHIP    COAL    LAND 

Navy  Coal  Must  Be  Quick  Firing — High  in  Heat  Value — 
Smokeless — Not  Subject  to  Spontaneous  Combustion — Alaska 
Coal  disappointing — Pocahontas  Coal  Answers  All  These  Tests 
and  Is  Standard — Government  Should  Gain  Control  of  Poca- 
hontas Coal  and  Keep  for  Its  Exclusive  Use — Pocahontas  Coal 
Is  Being  Rapidly  Depleted— Is  of  Small  Area — How  Gain 
Control — How  Operate — How  West  Virginia  Be  Compensated 
— How  Other  Users  Than  Governmnet  Be  Taken  Care  of — Is 
the  Purchase  a  Good  Investment? — If  We  Do  Not  Conserve 
This  Coal  Our  Navy  Will  Be  of  Little  Use  in  Time   of  War. 

"Our  Battleships  Without  Fuel."  If  this  had  faced 
the  public  in  the  headlines  of  our  morning  paper  one  morn- 
ing in  1917,  horror  and  panic  would  have  seized  the  entire 
people,  and  they  would  have  said : 

The  war  is  lost  without  our  navy.  Somebody  has  blundered. 
It  cannot  be  that  we  have  no  coal.  Stop  every  car  that  is 
moving  to  any  factory,  even  a  car  bringing  coal  to  us.  We 
will  for  a  time  bear  bitter  cold  and  eat  uncooked  food.  Rush 
every  car  to  the  coast,  to  the  collier,  to  the  battleship. 

What,  if  the  next  morning  paper  had  said : 

Our  battleships  are  without  fuel  because  they  will  not  take 
the  only  kind  of  coal  we  can  offer  them;  our  only  good  navy 
coal  is  all  gone;  we  have  let  everybody  use  it  for  every  kind 
of  purpose,  and  now  there  is  none  to  be  had.  The  only  kind 
of  coal  that  we  can  offer  is  poor  coal,  at  least,  poor  for  navy 
use.  The  battleship  officers  say  our  ships  are  worse  than 
useless  fueled  with  that  poor  coal,  when  pitted  against  ships 
fueled  with  good  navy  coal.  Better  dock  our  ships  and  save 
the  lives  of  our  men. 

Fortunately,  no  such  calamity  overtook  us.  No  ships 
that  plowed  the  oceans  were  driven  with  better  fuel  than 
ours  were.  Our  "Navy"  coal  is  equal  to  any  coal  in  the 
world.  We  have  enough  of  it  to  last  probably  half  a  cen- 
tury, as  it  is  now  being  dissipated.     If  the  government  is 

40 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    41 

not  intending  to  own  and  conserve  it,  our  programme  of 
battleship  building  ought  to  be  so  planned  that  the  last 
battleship  will  be  junked  in  half  a  century.  If  a  battleship 
is  intended  to  fight,  if  need  be,  it  will  miss  its  calling  if 
we  are  at  war,  at  the  end  of  about  half  a  century,  with  a 
nation  that  has  good  navy  coal  for  it$  ships. 

But  we  are  not  planning  to  junk  our  last  battleship  ever. 

We  are  building  the  greatest  battleships  in  the  world. 
We  are  arming  them  with  the  most  powerful  guns  that 
they  will  carry.  We  train  skilled  officers  and  gunners.  -We 
install  the  most  powerful  engines  to  drive  them.  They  are 
fighting  machines.  Our  cruisers  are  racers  equipped  to 
fight.  They  challenge  the  swiftest  enemy  ship  to  outrun 
them  when  they  pursue.  Fuel  them  with  poor  coal,  and 
let  the  enemy  fuel  with  the  best  coal,  and  the  race  is  lost ; 
a  slow  ship  with  good  coal  may  outrun  a  swift  ship  with 
poor  coal.  Our  naval  authorities  recognize  the  importance 
of  good  navy  coal.  They  will  accept  no  other.  A  well- 
thought-out  scheme  of  coaling  stations  supplied  with  good 
coal  and  colliers  supplied  with  apparatus  for  coaling  at  sea 
are  as  carefully  planned  as  the  ships  themselves.  But  this 
providence,  so  far,  has  merely  looked  to  the  immediate 
future.  It  is  doubtful  if  they  have  had  a  thought  beyond 
a  year  or  two  of  the  future.  It  is,  perhaps,  beyond  their 
province  ten  look  much  beyond  a  year-to-year  supply. 

But  legislators  and  an  intelligent  public  ought  to  be 
awake  to  the  fact  that  if  present  conditions  and  tendencies 
are  not  changed,  the  navy  will  be  without  coal  or  forced 
to  use  inferior  coal  at  a  time  not  more  than  a  century,  and 
probably  half  a  century  distant. 

Our  plea  for  immediate  and  effective  action  on  the  part 
of  our  government  will  fall  on  the  deaf  ears  of  those  who 
do  not  concern  themselves  about  what  will  happen  after 
they  are  dead.  But  let  them  plan  to  live  for  fifty  years, 
and  they  will  see  what  I  have  described,  unless  government 
intervenes.  It  will  also  have  little  interest  for  those  who 
can  only  think  in  terms  of  our  limitless  "inexhaustible" 
coal  supply. 


42  COAL 


Even   so,   it   must   be   remembered   that,    few   of   the 
really  good  coals,  as  they  are  rated,  are  good  navy  coal. 
A  good  navy  coal  must  answer  these  four  tests : 

(1)  It  must  be  quick-firing.  It  must  respond  to  a 
sudden  demand  for  more  steam  and  it  must  not  clinker 
under   forced  draft. 

(2)  It  must  be  high  in  heat  value.  The  greater  the 
heat  value  of  the  coal,  the  greater  will  be  the  steaming 
radius  of  the  ship  when  it  leaves  port  with  its  bunkers 
full,  and  the  greater  the  efficiency  of  the  stokers. 

(3)  It  should  not  be  liable  to  spontaneous  combustion. 

(4)  The  more  nearly  smokeless  it  is  the  better. 

An  army  using  smoking  powder  would  be  at  a  great 
disadvantage  if  pitted  against  an  army  using  smokeless 
powder.  This  we  found  to  our  everlasting  disgrace  when 
we  sent  soldiers'  equipped  with  smoking  powder  to  fight  in 
Cuba  against  Spaniards  equipped  with  smokeless  powder. 
It  is  almost  as  important  that  a  ship's  funnel  should  be 
smokeless  as  that  the  gun's  muzzle  should  be  smokeless. 

Where  is  an  adequate  supply  of  such  coal? 

.  First.     A  Supply  for  Ships  on  the  Pacific   Coast 

The  principal  supply  for  the  Pacific  Coast  was  for- 
merly shipped  around  Cape  Horn,  and  now  by  the  Panama 
Canal,  from  the  Eastern  coal  fields  of  the  United  States. 
We  had  hopes  that  ships  on  the  Pacific  Coast  would  be 
supplied  with  good  navy  coal  from  the  Alaska  coal  fields 
when  the  railroad  to  those  coal  fields  is  completed,  and  the 
coal  is  sufficiently  developed.  But  recent  tests  made  of 
the  coal  in  actual  trial  in  the  ship's  furnace  seem  to  show 
that  the  coal  is  not  good  navy  coal.  If  so,  the  ships  on 
the  Pacific  Coast  will  have  to  be  coaled  from  the  Eastern 
fields  as  at  present,  and  will  continue  their  drain  upon  the 
Eastern  coal.  I  shall  give  an  account  of  the  tests  of  the 
Alaska  coal  later.  To  show  the  importance,  however,  that 
scientific  and  practical  men  attach  to  a  supply  for  our  ships 
it  is  interesting  to  note  what  action -they  took  and  what 
opinion  they  expressed  with  regard  to  that  Alaskan  field 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL 

when  they  assumed  that  it  had  good  navy  coal.  Secretary 
Fisher,  when  he  was  about  to  visit  Alaska  for  the  purpose 
of  gaining  first-hand  information  that  would  help  him  to 
determine  how  to  aid  in  the  development  of  the  country, 
consulted  coal  men  and  metallurgical  societies,  to  get  their 
opinion.  He  asked  them  whether,  in  their  opinion,  the  coal 
land  in  Alaska  ought  to  be  sold  by  the  government  or 
whether  the  United  States  ought  to  retain  title  to  it  and 
operate  it,  either  directly  or  by  lease. 

The  following  resolution  was  passed  by  the  largest  Met- 
allurgical Society  in  the  United  States  and  sent  to  Secretary 
Fisher.  It  embodies  the  general  advice  which  he  received 
from  all  sources : 

There  are  now  known  to  exist  in  Alaska  but  two  relatively 
small  fields  containing  high-grade  navy  fuel,  and  inasmuch  as 
the  government  now  possesses  no  original  source  of  fuel  sup- 
ply on  the  Pacific  Coast,  it  is  desirable,  in  the  interest  of  the 
Xational  Defense  that  a  selected  area  of  these  fields  be  held 
and  operated  under  the  direct  control  of  the  government. 

Second.     Coal  for  the  Atlantic  Fleet 

All  these  people  were  very  properly  concerned  about  a 
coal  supply  for  the  Pacific  fleet,  as  the  ships  w;ll  have  to 
depend  on  imported  coal  or  bring  it  around  from  our 
Eastern  coast,  if  Alaska  cannot  furnish  it.  It  is  not  very 
surprising  either  that  they  should  not  be  solicitous  about 
a  supply  for  our  greater  Atlantic  fleet  and  government 
ships,  for  they  thought  the  supply  in  the  East  enough  for 
ages.  But  the  resolution  passed  by  the  Metallurgical  So- 
ciety, with  change  of  three  words,  is  just  as  proper  for 
our  Eastern  fleet. 

There  are  now  known  to  exist  on  the  Atlantic  Coast  but  two 
relatively  small  fields  containing  high-grade  navy  fuel,  and 
inasmuch  as  the  government  now  possesses  no  original  source 
of  such  supply  on  the  Atlantic  Coast,  it  is  desirable,  in  the 
interest  of  national  defense,  that  a  selected  area  of  these  fields 
be  owned  and  held  and  operated  under  the  direct  control  of 
the  government. 

These  two  fields  are  the  Pocahontas  and  New  River 


44  COAL 


coal  field  in  West  Virginia  and  the  semi-bituminous  coal 
field  in  Central  Pennsylvania.  When  anyone  speaks  of 
standard  navy  coal,  however,  he  is  assumed  to  mean  Poca- 
hontas coal.  When  the  Bering  River  coal  of  Alaska  was 
being  tested  for  navy  use,  Pocahontas  coal  was  brought 
to  Alaska  and  used  as  the  standard. 

That  the  general  government  acquire  and  hold  this  coal, 
or  the  largest  part  of  it,  for  its  exclusive  use  is  very  urgent. 
(1)  Pocahontas  is  the  standard  "navy"  coal  of  the  United 
States.  It  is  quick  firing,  of  high  heat  value,  is  not  liable 
to  spontaneous  combustion,  makes  little  smoke  in  burning. 
During  the  submarine  menace,  ships  were  required  to  have 
enough  smokeless  coal  in  bunker  to  steam  them  through 
the  submarine  zone.  Geologist  I.  C.  White  says  of  this 
coal: 

Pocahontas  coal  is  an  ideal  steam  fuel,  low  in  volatile  mat- 
ter and  high  in  fixed  carbon,  while  low  in  ash,  sulphur,  and 
moisture.  It  gives  off  intense  heat  with  a  nearly  smokeless 
combustion.  The  small  proportion  of  sulphur  insures  safety 
from  spontaneous  combustion  on  shipboard.  So  it  has  become 
the  ideal  fuel  for  steamship  and  general  navy  purposes  and 
its  use  on  those  lines  is  constantly  increasing. 

(2)     The  Pocahontas  Field  Is  of  Small  Area 

In  1908  I.  C.  White,  State  Geologist  for  West  Virginia, 
estimated  the  entire  area  of  the  Pocahontas  and  New  River 
fields  together  at  two  thousand  five  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  square  miles.  Since  that  time  at  least  seventy-five 
to  one  hundred  square  miles  have  been  exhausted.  If  we 
count  an  arear  of  twenty-five  hundred  square  miles,  or  one 
million,  six  hundred  thousand  acres,  each  acre  containing 
:>ix  thousand  tons  of  coal,  we  find  the  content  to  be  nine 
billion,  six  hundred  million  tons.  If  we  estimate,  with 
Professor  White,  the  depletion  at  fifty  million  tons  a  year, 
this  coal  will  last  one  hundred  and  ninety-two  years.  The 
real  Pocahontas  field  does  not  cover  more  than  five  hun- 
dred square  miles,  or  three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand 
acres  with  a  content  of  one  billion,  nine  hundred  and 
twenty  million  tons.     At  the  estimated  exhaustion  of  fifty 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    45 


million  tons  a  year,  this  coal  would  last  about  forty  years. 

In  the  Pocahontas  field  there  are  but  two  veins  of  the 
lower  Pottsville  or  Pocahontas  coal, — named  No.  3  and 
No.  4, — that  are  of  workable  thickness.  Generally  where 
No.  4  is  found,  No.  3  is  thin  or  wanting.  No.  3,  which 
is  the  great  vein  of  the  field,  varies  in  thickness  from  two 
feet  eight  inches  to  seven  feet. 

We  can  see  now  the  basis  upon  which  the  head  of  the 
Geological  Survey  lately  made  our  previously  quoted  state- 
ment. After  giving  a  gloomy  forecast  of  the  life  of  the 
Pittsburg  vein,  he  said : 

When  we  turn  to  examine  a  less  nearly  exhausted  coal  field 
as  the  Pocahontas,  we  find  that  increased  rate  of  output  tends 
to  cut  down  the  early  and  more  optimistic  calculation  of  ex- 
pectancy of  life.  Expressed  in  human  units,  the  estimation 
for  the  Pocahontas  field  is  cut  down  from  four  or  five  genera- 
tions to  three,  or  even   two. 

That  is,  down  to  sixty-five  to  one  hundred  years. 

The  Field  Is  Being  Rapidly  Depleted 

This  coal  is  being  sent  all  over  the  Middle  West.  It  is 
in  demand  in  cities  in  which  smoke-prevention  is  required. 
It  is  shipped  to  steel  plants,  where  it  is  mixed  with  higher 
volatile  coals  and  burned  in  byproduct  ovens.  The  United 
States  Steel  Company  burned  three  million  tons  of  coal  in 
a  year,  seventy-six  per  cent  being  Pocahontas  coal.  It  is 
carried  to  the  great  docks  at  Newport  News  and  Norfolk, 
and  thence  it  goes  to  all  points  along  the  New  England 
Coast  for  distribution  in  the  interior. 

In  addition  to  furnishing  coal  to  battleships,  this  field 
is  supplying  bunker  coal  for  nearly  all  ships  plying  between 
this  and  other  countries.  Up  until  a  short  time  ago  our 
smokeless  operators  furnished  little  bunker  coal.  Ships 
plying  between  England  and  the  United  States  bunkered 
at  English  ports  for  the  entird  round  trip.  It  was  thought 
that  American  coals  were  not  fit  for  steamship  coal.  When 
England  began  to  limit  the  amount  of  coal  she  could  spare 
from  her  battleships  and  ammunition  plants,  ships  leaving 


46  COAL 


England  for  the  United  States  took  enough  coal  to  bring 
them  across  the  ocean  and  got  coal  here  to  take  them  back. 
Later  they  took  coal  here  for  the  round  trip. 

In  addition,  ships  plying  between  South  America  and 
England  now  consume  twice  as  much  of  our  coal  as  for- 
merly and  get  it  at  Newport  News.  They  cannot  carry 
enough  coal  to  take  them  from  Newport  News  to  South 
America  for  a  cargo  and  across  to  Europe  and  return  to 
Newport  News,  but  bunker  enough  to  take  them  from 
Newport  News  to  South  America  and  back,  then  bunker 
enough  coal  to  take  them  from  Newport  News  to  Europe 
and  back.  During  the  war,  on  account  of  embargo  on 
coal  from  England,  the  bottling  up  of  Belgian,  French, 
and  German  coal,  the  Pocahontas  coal  was  carried  to  all 
neutral  countries,  and  before  we  entered  the  war  was 
carried  to  any  of  the  Central  belligerents  we  could  reach, 
and  to  our  Allies  after  we  entered  the  war.  If  it  had  not 
been  for  the  stress  of  their  need  of  fuel,  Pocahontas  coal 
would  not  have  had  so  fair  a  chance  to  show  how  good  it 
is.  It  is  very  friable,  and  by  the  time  it  has  passed  a 
number  of  handlings,  a  considerable  amount  of  it  is 
crushed  fine. 

It  is  common  report  that  the  first  cargo  of  Pocahontas  coal 
exported  to  Southern  France  was  rejected  on  the  ground  that 
the  consignor  had  sent  "slack,"  or  the  waste  coal  of  the  mines, 
instead  of  pure  coal,  as  contracted  for.  Finally  the  purchaser 
was  induced  to  give  the  supposed  "slack"  coal  a  steaming 
test,  where,  to  his  great  surprise,  it  surpassed  any  coal  he  had 
ever  used  for  that  purpose. 

Now  nearly  every  nation  is  clamoring  for  this  coal. 

The  editor  of  a  trade  journal  is  so  afraid  that  we  shall 
damage  our  reputation,  and  thus  check  exportation,  that 
he  advocates  the  absolute  prohibition  of  the  shipment  of 
any  other  than  this  coal,  so  that  exportation  may  be  rapidly 
increased.    He  says : 

If  we  are  to  build  up  a  permanent  export  business,  in  order 
to  meet  the  competition  of  English  coal,  only  the  premier  coals 
of  the  country  should  be  permitted  to  be  shipped  to  foreign 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    47 


markets.  Competition  is  bound  to  be  keen  and  it  will  take 
the  best  coal  we  produce  to  give  us  a  chance  at  all.  In  view 
of  this,  it  should  be  the  duty  of  the  Bureau  of  Mines  to  find 
out  the  best  coal  for  the  export  market.  A  list  should  be 
published  of  the  permissible  export  coals  and  coals  shipped 
to  foreign  ports  should  be  confined  to  this  list. 

The  editor  need  no  trouble  himself  conjuring  up  pos- 
sible and  impossible  legal  machinery  to  hasten  export  of 
our  best  coal.  That  is  the  kind  going  into  export,  and, — 
more  the  pity! — our  best  coal  will  continue  to  go  in  in- 
creasing volume,  if  this  exportation  is  not  checked.  The 
ordinary  coal-users  may  not  like  to  be  treated  as  the  chil- 
dren of  the  thrifty  mother  who  sells  her  good  butter  and 
spreads  meat- frying  on  her  children's  bread.  They  may 
not  rise  up  in  protest.  But  it  is  time  for  the  American 
people,  who  not  only  have  pride  in  our  ships  but  place 
their  firmest  trust  on  them,  if  the  emergency  comes,  to 
rise  up  in  effective  protest.  Another  source  of  unequal 
drain  upon  this  coal  is  that  the  mines  are  non-union.  Dur- 
ing the  strike  in  1919,  when  union  mines  were  idle,  these 
non-union  mines  produced  almost  to  full  capacity. 

How  can  the  United  States  get  possession  of  this  navy 
coal  land?  The  coal  has  been  sold  with  the  surface  to  pri- 
vate owners.  The  coal  is  theirs  and  may  not  be  taken  from 
them  without  compensation.  A  combination  of  three  ways 
may  be  necessary  or  advisable, — (1)  Purchase  from  the 
owner  either  the  coal  alone  or  both  coal  and  surface;  (2) 
Purchase  from  the  lessees  the  leases  which  they  hold;  (3) 
Take  by  condemnation  where  actually  necessary. 

Purchase  from  the  Owners 

If  the  coal  in  any  given  case  can  be  mined  without  dam- 
age to  the  surface,  it  is  better  to  follow  (the  government's 
present  way  of  disposing  of  its  coal  land,  that  is,  consider 
the  surface  and  coal  separately,  leave  the  owner  in  pos- 
session of  the  surface  and  buy  only  the  coal.  In  (this  way 
cultivation  of  the  surface  is  encouraged.  Where  mining 
the  coal  under  the  farm  is  likely  to  damage  the  surface, 
or  where  the  surface  is  necessary  for  construction  of  roads 


48  COAL 


and  railroads,  or  where  the  owner  does  not  want  ito  sepa- 
rate coal  and  surface,  then  both  may  be  bought. 

Purchase  from  the  Lessee  the  Lease  That  He  Holds 

It  is  said  that  ninety  per  cent  of  rthe  mines  in  that 
field  are  being  operated  under  lease.  It  is  probable  that 
these  leases  would  better  be  bought.  If  the  lease  is  for 
long  enough  time  to  exhaust  the  tract  leased,  it  will  not 
be  necessary  to  buy  the  landowner's  right,  as  he  will,  no 
doubt,  be  glad  to  exchange  the  present  lessee  for  such  a 
good  paymaster  as  the  United  States, — the  more  so,  as  he 
will  understand  "that  the  new  lessee  will  see  to  it  that  no 
coal  is  wasted  and  the  return  from  royalty  will  be  so  much 
greater  from  scientific  mining  than  it  is  likely  to  be  as 
mined  at  present. 

What  of  the  Equipment  and  Improvements  Connected 
with  the  Mines?  The  solution  may  involve  any  one  of 
three  conditions: 

First.  The  equipment  and  improvement  made  by  the 
lessee.  In  this  case  the  negotiation  for  the  lease  will  in- 
clude the  equipment  and  improvements. 

Second.  The  equipment  may  have  been  furnished  by 
the  lessor,  to  be  returned  by  the  lessee  in  as  good  condi- 
tion as  is  reasonable,  wear  and  tear  considered.  In  that 
case  ithe  use  of  the  equipment  passes  with  the  lease  subject 
to  the  same  conditions  of  return. 

Third.  The  equipment  is  furnished  by  the  lessor,  but 
the  United  States  government  dismantles  and  abandons 
the  mine.  It  may  be  ithat  where  the  whole  field  is  con- 
sidered, certain  mines  will  be  abandoned  for  one  or  an- 
other reason.  It  may  be  better  to  mine  the  area  being 
mined  by  a  certain  plant  from  another  opening,  or  its 
output  may  nat  be  needed  till  later.  In  this  case  both  coal 
and  equipment  must  be  bought,  or  some  other  equitable 
arrangement  be  made. 

The  Government  May  Take  By  Condemnation  Proceedings 
It  is  probable  that  small  occasion  will  arise  for  the  ex- 


GOVERN  MENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    49 

ercise  of  condemnation  proceedings.  The  profits  from 
coal  mining  have  been  so  small  and  uncertain  for  the  most 
part  that  owners  will  be  very  willing  to  sell  at  a  reasonable 
price. 

Everyone  familiar  with  the  coal  business  knows  of 
large  areas  of  coal  land  offered  for  sale.  But  it  may  be 
that  some  owners  may  be  holding  for  a  high  price,  or 
where  ithey  know  that  government  wants  their  coal  land, 
will  place  the  price  unreasonably  high.  In  such  case  the 
government  may  have  to  acquire  the  land  by  condemnation. 
Is  the  government  exceeding  its  legitimate  powers  in  taking 
coal  land  in  that  way?  The  government  itakes  by  con- 
demnation lands  needed  for  arsenals,  forts,  and  army  posts. 
Railroads  take  land  for  right  of  way  and  confiscate  coal 
for  their  engines  on  the  theory  that  they  are  performing 
a  governmenit  function.  The  government  would  confiscate 
coal  for)  its  ships,  paying  the  owner  for  the  coal.  It  must 
be  able  to  take  now  the  coal  which  it  will  sorely  need  in 
the  future  for  its  ships. 

How  Much  of  This  Navy  Coal  Should  Be  Acquired? 

If  the  Pocahontas  field  alone  be  acquired,  only  about 
five  hundred  square  miles,  or  three  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  acres,  containing  about  two  billion  tons,  will  be 
covered.  If  the  New  River  field  be  also  included,  the 
area  will  be  probably  twenty-five  hundred  square  miles, 
or  one  million  six  hundred  thousand  acres,  containing 
about  ten  billion  tons.  It  may  be  determined  to  acquire 
some  area  between  those  limits.  But  it  seems  wise  to  con- 
sider the  entire  field,  for,  as  will  hereafter  be  suggestd, 
some  parts  of  ithe  field  that  are  now  being  mined  for  ex- 
port, and  some  parts  now  being  mined  for  certain  essential 
purposes,  in  the  Pocahontas  field  may  be  allowed  to  con- 
tinue, and  at  least  that  much  should  be  available  for  navy 
use  in  the  New  River  field. 

What  Price  Should,  Be  Paid  for  the  Coal?     ' 

1.     A  complete  map  should  be  made,  showing  topogra- 


50  COAL 


phy,  roads,  railroads  already  built,  together  with  the  roads 
that  will  be  needed  in  the  development  of  the  field.  On 
this  map  the  holdings  of  each  owner  and  lessee  should  be 
drawn,  showing  iits  accessibility,  its  nearness  to  a  means 
of  transportation  to  tidewater,  the  field  of  development  to 
which  it  naturally  belongs,  and  its  distance  from  the  operat- 
ing plant  through  which  it  will  be  mined. 

2.  Make  use  of  the  data  already  collected  in  the  West 
Virginia  Geological  Survey,  and  the  logs  of  the  many 
drill-holes  made  by  coal  and  oil  companies;  supplement 
these  with  as  many  tests  as  necessary,  and  thus  determine 
the  number  of  veins  and  (the  thickness  and  area  of  each 
workable  vein  in  each  holding. 

3.  Acquire  each  holding,  if  possible,  amicably,  by  one 
of  the  three  ways  proposed,  that  is,  by  purchase  of  the 
land,  purchase  of  the  lease,  or  lease  of  the  lease,  at  a 
price  at  which  this  particular  tract  is  rated  in  accordance 
with  the  general  principles  that  have  been  adopted  for 
the  entire  field. 

Principles  Made  Use  of  in  Rating  the  Various  Tracts 

1.  Making  use  of  the  data  concerning  number,  thick- 
ness, and  area  of  each  vein,  estimate  the  probable  aver- 
age recoverable  tonnage  from  each  vein  in  the  itract.  When 
the  government  was  selling  its  coal  land  in  the  West  it 
estimated  the  tonnage  in,  the  land  in  this  way,  but  counted 
only  one-fifth  to  one-third  of  the  result  in  charging  for 
the  land.  The  uncertainty  concerning  faults  and  so  on 
was  reckoned  great  enough  to  warrant  suchj  reduction. 

2.  Fix  upon  a  royalty  rate  based  on  distance  of  the 
tract  from  the  mine  through  which  iit  is  to  be  operated. 
Thus,  if  the  royalty  on  coal  within  one  mile  of  the  mine 
is  10  cents  a  ton,  the  royalty  on  coal  at  two  miles  dis- 
tant is  9  cents;  and  so  the  royalty  decreases  by  one  cent 
a  ton  for  every  additional  mile  of  distance  up  to  five  miles. 
For  coal  at  a  distance  of  five  miles  or  more  the  royalty  is 
fixed  ait  5  cents  a  ton. 

3.  Estimate  the  number  of  years  it  will  take  to  mine 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    5 1 


each  holding  when  operated  along  with  other  coal   with 
which  it  will  naturally  be  mined  at  the  same  time. 

4.  Having  the  tonnage  in  each  tract  and  the  number 
of  years  it  will  last  after  operation  begins,  of  course  the 
tonnage  divided  by  the  number  of  years  will  give  the 
average  number  of  tons  put  out  each  year. 

5.  The  tonnage  put  out  each  year,  multiplied  by  the 
rated  royalty  per  ton,  gives  the  amount  of  money  the  tract 
will  yield  each  year  after  it  begins  to  operate.  That  is, 
the  holder  would  realize  an  annuity  of  that  sum  from  the 
beginning  of  operation  till  the  coal  is  exhausted. 

6.  Determine  as  nearly  as  possible  the  number  of  years 
it  will  be  until  operation  reaches  each  tract.  . 

Having,  then,  the  number  of  years  that  will  elapse  until 
operation  begins,  the  number  of  years  the  annuity  will 
run,  the  equitable  price  per  acre  is  the  present  worth  of 
given  annuity  beginning  at  the  end  of  a  certain  number  of 
years  and  running  a  given  number  of  years.  A  single  il- 
lustration will  suffice : 

Suppose  a  tract  of  one  hundred  acres  will  be  reached 
in  operation  in  twenty  years,  and  be  worked  out  in  twenty 
years,  at  a  uniform  rate  of  operation.  Suppose  the  esti- 
mated tonnage  is  four  thousand  tons  to  the  acre,  or  the 
entire  estimated  tonnage  is  four  hundred  thousand  tons. 
Then  the  average  yearly  output  will  be  twenty  thousand 
tons. 

Suppose  the  tract  is  three  miles  from  the  mine,  and 
therefore  the  rate  royalty  is  8  cents  a  ton.  The  annuity 
therefore  is  $1600.  Now  the  present  worth  of  an  annuity 
of  $1600  to  begin  in  twenty  years  and  continue  for  twentv 
years  is  $5280. 

Therefore  the  proper  value  of  the  land  in  this  tract  is 
$52.80  an  acre. 

How  Will  the  Government  Conduct  the  Mining? 

First.  Acquiring  navy  coal  land  is  not  launching  a 
scheme  to  nationalize  the  coal  industry.  It  is  simply  con- 
tracting for  a  coal  supply  for  the  United  States  navy  for 


52  COAL 

a  number  of  years,  instead  of  for  one  or  two  years.  It 
is  contracting  with  a  contractor  who  cannot  be  out  of  coal 
when  the  government  calls  for  the  coal. 

It  is  -exercising  the  same  kind  of  common  business 
sense  that  is  being  exercised  by  railroads  that  are  buying 
their  coal  years  ahead  by  buying  the  coal  in  the  ground, 
and  exercised  by  steel  companies  that  lease  coal  land  in 
a  perpetual  lease. 

Second.  It  mill  operate  its  coal  land  under  lease,  the 
government  taking  all  the  output  for  its  own  use  or  its 
own  disposal.  There  are  few  industries  that  require  such 
skill  in  the  management  as  coal  mining.  Every  coal  field 
has  problems  that  are  different  from  those  in  every  other 
field.  Some  of  the  most  disastrous  failures  have  come 
from  operators  and  managers  from  one  field  carrying  the 
methods  they  used  in  the  field  with  which  they  are  familiar 
over  into  the  new  field,  which  they  do  not  know.  It  is  a 
common  saying  in  the  West,  that  an  operator  from  the 
East  takes  two  years  to  find  out  that  he  does  not  know 
how  to  manage  a  Western  mine.  Lessees  in  this  field  will 
generally  continue  to  operate  government  (mines  under 
strict  regulation,  helpful  co-operation,  and  suggestion,  such 
as  I  shall  outline  later.  Operators  will  eventually  sell  all 
their  coal  to  the  government  at  a  profit  not  too  great,  but 
which  will  give  them  a  very  delightful  change,  a  steady 
profit  instead  of  their  former  experience  (now  a  profit, 
now  no  profit  or  a  loss),  no  anxiety  about  finding  a  buyer, 
and  no  bad  debts. 

How  Will  the  State  Be  Compensated  for  Loss  of  Taxf 

It  is  a  complaint,  which  has  a  good  deal  of  force,  on 
the  part  of  States  in  the  West,  within  whose  borders  gov- 
ernment-owned lands  are  located,  that  these  lands  are 
leased  by  the  government  while  the  State  or  the  county 
furnishes  protection  and  improvement  such  as  arei  given  to 
privately-owned  land,  and  yet  the  land  is  not  taxed.  The 
complaint  would  come  with  greater  force,  if  land  that  the 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    53 

state  now  taxes  should  be  taken  by  the  Federal  govern- 
ment and  relieved  from  taxation. 

Extreme  socialists  would  maintain  that  coal  belongs  to 
the  whole  people  rather  than  to  the  State.  But  it  seems 
clear  that  the  State  should  be  compensated  for  the  loss  of 
tax  that  it  formerly  enjoyed.  The  easiest  and  most  equit- 
ably way  is  for  the  government  to  pay  the  State  a  certain 
royalty  on  each  ton  of  coal  mined,  so  that  the  State  would 
get  as  much  from  the  land  now  owned  by  the  government 
as  it  received,  or  would  have  received,  if  it  had  remained 
in  private  hands. 

Suppose,  for  example,  that  the  land  taken  by  the  Fed- 
eral government  had  been  taxed  30  cents  an  acre,  the 
State  received  from  three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand 
acres  taxes  to  the  amount  of  $96,000.  If  the  output  of 
coal  for  the  government  use  is  ten  million  tons  a  year, 
one  cent  a  ton  will  produce  $100,000,  or  enough  and  some 
to  spare.  If  the  one  million  six  hundred  thousand  acres 
are  bought,  and  the  tax  is  30  cents  an  acre,  the  total 
amount  is  $480,000.  Five  cents  a  ton  will  raise  the  amount, 
if  ten  million  tons  are  mined.  This  amount  of  tax  will 
decrease  as  the  coal  is  depleted.  The  State  will  receive 
tax  for  a  longer  time  than  it  would  under  private  owner- 
ship, for  depletion  will  not  progress  so  rapidly. 

Is  This  Purchase  a  Good  Investment?  Will  it  Make 
High  Cost  for  Navy  Coal? 

It  is  a  good  investment  even  if  it  made  navy  coal  cost 
high,  which  it  will  not. 

1.  If  only  three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  acres 
of  the  Pocahontas  field  be  bought  at  $60  an  acre,  the  cost 
will  be  $19,200,000. 

If,  as  a  first  adjustment,  one  million  six  hundred  thou- 
sand acres  be  bought  at  $60  an  acre  on  the  average,  the 
cost  will  be  $96,000,000. 

A  considerable  reduction  will  result  from  taking  over 
leases  instead  of  buying  the  land  outright.  This  reduction 
might  be  nearly  enough  to  offset  cost  of  equipment.     The 


54  COAL 


larger  of  these  sums  is  not  staggering,  as  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  think  in  terms  of  billions. 

2.  Taking  about  the  average  of  these  two  sums,  to 
illustrate,  $60,000,000,  the  interest  charge  at  first,  at  four 
per  cent,  is  $2,400,000  a  year. 

IfJ  the  annual  output  amounts  to  fifteen  million  tons,  a 
charge  of  from  16  cents  a  ton  at  the  outs'tart,  running  down 
to  zero  when  the  sinking  fund  pays  of!  the  $60,000,000, 
will  suffice. 

3.  To  provide  a  sinking  fund  of  $2,000,000  a  year, 
exclusive  of  interest,  will  require  a  charge  of  14  cents  a 
ton  on  an  output  of  fifteen  million  tons. 

4.  If  the  cost  of  mining  and  upkeep  be  $2.25  a  ton, 
and  the  operator  be  allowed  a  profit  of  50  cents  a  ton, 
the  cost  at  the  mouth  of  the  mine  will  be  $2.75  a  ton.  Add 
to  this  the*  30  cents  for  interest  and  sinking  fund,  and  the 
coal  will  cost  $3.05  a  ton. 

The  interest  charge  will  constantly  decrease  until  it 
becomes  zero.  The  original  cost  will  be  paid  by  the  sink- 
ing fund  in  about  thirty  years.  At  that  time  the  only  cost 
to  the  government  will  be  cost  of  mining,  operators',  profit, 
and  royalty  paid  to  West  Virginia.  It  will  cost  more  to 
mine  coal  in  thirty  years  than  it  does  now,  but  the  in- 
creased cost  will  not  be  greater  in  government  mines  than 
in  other  mines. 

Can  anyone  imagine  the  navy  buying  Pocahontas  coal 
m  thirty  years  from  now,  if  there  is  any  to  buy,  at  three 
or  four  times  $3  a<  ton,  if  government  does  not  control  its 
dissipation  ? 

Is  the  Government  Freezing  Industry  and  the  People 
for  the  Sake  of  the  Navy  of  the  Future? 

It  will  be  objected  that  coal  needed  in  industry  and 
commerce  and  in  the  homes,  is  to  be  hoarded  to  the  great 
injury  of  the  public.  No  legitimate  industry  will  be  crip- 
pled, no  domestic  need  unsupplied.  The  New  River  field 
was  included  in  our  discussion  to  meet  that  objection. 
In  parts  of  the  Pocahontas  field,  and  especially  in  the  New 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    55 

River  field,  there  are  veins  of  coal,  other  than  the  Poca- 
hontas coal,  which  can  still  be  mined  commercially.  Such 
veins  as  the  Sewell,  Fire  Creek,  and  Beckley,  are  com- 
mercially rated  as  high  as  Pocahontas. 

To  illustrate  the  use  which  can  be  made  of  these  coals 
to  serve  the  public,  and  still  save  the  Pocahontas,  two 
illustrations  may  be  given : 

1.  Coal  serving  an  essential  industry. 

The  United  States  Coal  and  Coke  Company,  a  subsid- 
iary to  the  United  States  Steel  Company,  has  leased  a 
large  area  of  Pocahontas  coal  land.  The  output  is  sent 
to  Gary,  Indiana,  and  Sharon,  and  mixed  with  Illinois  and 
Pennsylvania  coal,  and  burned  in  byproduct  ovens.  If, 
on  investigation,  it  is  found  that  low  volatile  coal  is  essen- 
tial to  the  steel  industry,  either  of  two  things  may  be  done : 
-  First.  A  lease  on  an  area  in  the  New  River  field 
equal  to  the  area  of  the  leasehold  in  the  Pocahontas  field 
may  be  given  in  exchange. 

Second.  If  it  is  found  that  New  River  coal  is  as  good 
navy  coal  as  Pocahontas,  an  area  equal  to  that  which  is 
held  by  the  steel  company  in  the  Pocahontas  field  may  be 
set  aside  in  the  New  River  field  for  navy  use,  and  the  steel 
company  may  continue  to  operate  its  own  lease. 

2.  Export  Coal. 

As  a  humanitarian  act  it  will  be  necessary  to  furnish 
coal  to  Europe  until  it  can  adjust  itself  to  the  new  condi- 
tions and  has  time  to  develop  its  resources  and  supply  its 
own  needs. 

In  a  short  time,  fortunately,  there  will  be  no  need  that 
we  sell  our  good  coal  cheap,  in  order  to  furnish  foreign 
ships  with  cargoes,  so  that  their  owners  may  grow  rich 
from  their  exorbitant  freight  rates.  Until  such  time  as 
we  can  see  the  folly  of  sending  our  good  raw  coal  to  for- 
eigners for  them  to  save  the  gas  and  coke  and  sell  the 
rest  back  to  us  at  a  manifold  price  in  dyes  and  drugs,  we 


56  COAL 

can  export  New  River  coal.  Meanwhile  Kanawa  gas  coal, 
Pennsylvania,  and  other  coals  may  help  to  warm  and  re- 
build Europe  and  continue,  as  now,  to  supply  our  home 
needs. 

Will  the  League  of  Nations  and  the  New  Era  of  "Peace 
on  Earth  and  Good  Will  Toward  Men"  make  battleships 
and  navy  coal  unnecessary? 

Our  navy  and  other  ships  will  never  be  less  than  at 
present.  Our  building  programme  looks  toward  a  navy 
equal  to  that  of  any  nation  in  the  world.  A  year  before 
the  beginning  of  the  Great  War,  war  between  civilized 
nations  was  declared  unthinkable.  Warned  by  past  ex- 
perience, no  great  nation  will  again  be  caught  napping. 
England  and  France  will  have  need  of  greater  navies,  than 
at  present,  to  protect  their  far-stretching  interests.  They 
are  now  arranging  mandatories  in  the  Near  East,  with  a 
view  to  protection  from  assault  from  without,  and  not  neg- 
lecting the  possible  future  time  when  they  will  again  be 
enemies.  The  wider  world  that  has  opened  up  will  demand 
a  wider  spread  of  our  ships.  Our  great  coast  line  and 
our  island  possessions  will  never  need  fewer  protecting 
ships  than  now. 

We  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment should  at  once: 

1.  Map  out  and  test  the  Pocahontas  field  so  as  to 
decide  how  much  anc|  what  part  of  it  is  best  fitted  to  fur- 
nish the  navy  fuel  of  the  future. 

2.  Acquire  this  land  on  terms  that  are  just  to  both 
owners  and  the  nation. 

3.  Adjust  the  claims  of  present  operators  holding 
lease,  arid  operation  should  be  carried  on  under  government 
control.  The  output  should  be  gradually  reduced  until  it 
is  just  sufficient  for  government  needs. 


CHAPTER  VII 

NAVY   COAL   IN    ALASKA 

Alaska  Gives  Little  Promise  of  Furnishing  Navy  Coal — Test 
Made  By  Bureau  of  Mines,  on  Cruiser  Maryland— Seven-day 
Test  in  Port— Fifteen-knot  Test  at  Sea— Twenty-knot  Test  at 
Sea— Conclusion  :  Bering  River  Coal  Is  Unsuitable  for  Navy 
Coal— Test  of  Washed  and  Cleaned  Coal  at  Annapolis—Con- 
clusion: Bering  River  Coal  Is  Entirely  Unsuited  for  Service 
As  a  Steam  Coal— Three  Points  Evident  in  These  Tests:  (1) 
Pocahontas  Coal  Was  Always  the  Standard— (2)  Pocahontas 
Has  Qualities  Not  Shown  By  Chemical  Tests  Which  Distin- 
guish it  As  a  Navy  Coal— (3)  Bering  River  Coal  Will  Not  Help 
to   Relieve   Drain   on   Eastern    Coal   for   Ships. 

Alaska  Gives  Little  Promise  of  Furnishing  Navy  Coal 

I  proposed  above  to  fortify  my  statement  that  Alaska 
seems  unable  to  relieve  the  drain  upon  Eastern  coal  for 
the  use  of  the  navy.  High  hopes  were  built  upon  it.  Dur- 
ing the  investigation  of  Secretary  Ballinger,  the  value  of 
the  Alaska  coal  was  very  much  exaggerated  for  political 
reasons.  Even  honest  prospectors  have  been  deceived  as 
to  its  value.  But  at  present  the  value  of  its  coal  for  use 
in  the  navy  is  all  that  I  shall  consider. 

In  1913,  Congress  appropriated  a  sum  of  money  to 
be  "used  for  the  survey  and  investigation  by  experimen- 
tal tests  of  coal  in  Alaska,  for  use  on  board  ships  of  the 
United  States  navy  and  vessels  of  the  United  States." 
The  investigation  was  carried  on  under  the  direction  of 
the  Bureau  of  Mines.  On  account  of  the  lateness  of  the 
season  when  work  was  commenced,  the  investigation  was 
confined  to  the  Bering  River  field. 

R.  Y.  Williams,  mining  engineer  in  the  Bureau  of 
Mines,  who  was  one  of  the  chiefs  in  the  work,  says  that 
they  proceeded 

to  determine  whether  or  not  there  existed  within  these  coal 
fields  workable  beds  of  coal  suitable  for  naval  use  which  might 

57 


58  COAL 


be  set  aside  by  the  President  as  a  coal  reservation  for  the  navy 
department,  and  from  which  the  navy  could  obtain  thereafter 
a  supply  of  high-grade  steaming  coal  for  its  needs. 

Again,  he  says : 

After  a  thorough  investigation  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
surface  outcrops  and  twenty-two  tunnels,  it  was  decided  that 
the  coal  is  prevailingly  soft,  very  much  crushed  and  sheared, 
and  that  the  areas  containing  coal  of  a  character  satisfactory 
for  navy  purposes  were  restricted  to  not  more  than  three 
locations. 

From  these  they  mined  and  carried  to  the  coast  eight 
hundred  tons,  to  be  used  (in  what  is  the  only  real  test) 
in  the  furnaces  of  a  navy  ship.  The  Maryland,  an  armored 
cruiser,  of  15,138  tons  full-load  displacement,  was  desig- 
nated ito  make  the  tests  under  the  following  instructions : 

The  Bureau  desires  two  complete  sets  of  tests,  one  to  be 
with  run-of-mine  Pocahontas  coal  and  the  other  with  Bering 
River   coal.     Each   set   of  tests   shall   consists   of: 

(1)  An  uninterrupted  period  of  not  less  than  seven  days  in 
port.  The  auxiliaries  shall  be  the  same  in  both  series  of  tests, 
equal  duty  to  be  performed. 

(2)  A  test  at  sea  with  not  more  than  three-fourths  boiler 
power  and  at  a  speed  of  fifteen  knots  an  hour.  This  test  to 
last  twenty-four  hours. 

(3)  A  test  at  sea  under  full  boiler  power  at  a  speed  of  twenty 
knots.     The  test  is  to  last  four  hours. 

(a)     Test  in  Alaska. 

(1)  The  Seven  Days*  Test  in  Port  is  summarized  as 
follows : 

Of  Pocahontas  94.3  tons  were  used,  and  Bering  River  coal 
for  equal  duty  136.8  tons.  The  Bering  River  coal  is  only  sixty- 
nine  per  cent  as  efficient  as  Pocahontas.  Neither  screened  lump, 
run-of-mine  or  slack  of  Bering  River  coal  is  equal  to  Pocahon- 
tas for  the  same  duty. 

(2)  The  twelve  hour,  three-fourth  boiler  power  fifteen 
knots  test.  With  Pocahontas  coal  ten  boilers  out  of  the 
sixteen  were  all  that  were  nacded  to  make  fifteen  knots 
an  hour.  With  Bering  River  coal,  fourteen  boilers  were 
tried,  but  it  was  found  they  could  not  mnke  enough  steam 
to  maintain  a  speed  of  fifteen  knots  an  hour,  so  two  more 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    59 


boilers  were  added.  At  the  beginning  of  the  run  forty 
per  cent  of  the  coal  was  lost  through  the  grate  bars,  as 
the  coal  was  very  slack.  There  was  an  accumulation  of 
soot  and  fine  ash  all  through  the  tubes,  and  the  boilers  were 
dirty.  Nine  anchor  clamps,  four  end  tubes  to  casing  were 
burned  off,  one  baffle  door  was  warped,  and  one  cast-iron 
block  between  center  four-inch  tubes  was  burned.  The 
fires  clinkered  badly,  and  great  quantities  of  ash  were 
produced.  The  efficiency  of  Bering  River  coal  was  forty- 
four  per  cent  of  Pocahontas.  That  is,  for  equal  duty  of 
fifteen  knots  an  hour,  76.6  tons  of  Pocahontas  were  used 
and  173.3  tons  of  Bering  River  coal. 

(3)  Four  hours  full  pozver,  forced  draft,  twenty  knot 
test. 

First.     Pocahontas. 

The  twenty-knot  speed  was  maintained  with  the  greatest 
ease  and  with  little  effort  on  the  part  of  the  firemen.  There 
was  but  little  ash  or  clinker  and  the  boilers  were  fairly  clean 
at  the  end  of  the  run. 

Second.     Bering  River  Coal. 

All  boilers  were  in  use,  clinkers  and  ash  in  excessive  quan- 
tities were  produced.  Every  effort  was  made  to  make  a  speed 
of  twenty  knots,  the  firemen  working  to  the  point  of  collapse. 
Constant  removal  of  clinkers  was  necessary.  The  average 
speed  was   eighteen   and   six-tenths   knots. 

Comparative  results  for  equal  duty,  Pocahontas  79  tons, 
Bering  River  184.7  tons,  or  Bering  River  forty-two  and  eight- 
tenths  per  cent  as  efficient  as  Pocahontas. 

Their  statement  is : 

Bering  River  run-of-mine  is  unsuitable  for  use  with  forced 
draft  in  naval  boilers. 

The  report  in  conclusion  is : 

1.  The  per  cent  of  ash  and  clinker  in  Bering  River  run-of- 
mine  is  excessive,  merely  throwing  excessive  work  upon  the 
personnel. 

2.  More  boiler  power  had  to  be  used  with  Bering  River 
coal  for  equal  duty.    The  difference  in  coal  consumption  is  too 


60  COAL 


great  to  allow  a  hope  for  results  with  Bering*  River  coal  that 
may  in  any  way  compare  with  Pocahontas  coal. 

3.  Bering  River  coal  is  superior  to  Pocahontas  in  smokeless 
qualities. 

4.  The  number  of  miles  that  can  be  steamed  with  Bering 
River  coal  with  one  bunkering  is  much  smaller  than  with 
Pocahontas — approximately  one-half.  That  is  to  say,  with 
Pocahontas  coal  the  Maryland  could  steam  from  San  Francisco 

-to  Yokohama  and  have  three  hundred  tons  in  her  bunkers, 
while  with  Bering  River  coal  she  could  only  steam  to  Honolulu 
and  arrive  with  the  same  amount  in   bunkers. 

(b)     Test  at  Annapolis. 

Tests  of  Washed  and  Screened  Bering  River  Coal. 
It  was  contended  by  some  that  the  Bering  River  coal  had 
not  had  a  chance  to  show  what  it  could  do  after  proper 
washing  and  screening  plants  are  erected  at  (the  mines. 
So  a  portion  of  the  Bering  River  coal  was  sent  to  the 
United  States  Engineering  Experiment  Station  at  Annapo- 
lis to  be  washed  and  screened  until  the  remainder  should 
compare  equally  with  the  Pocahontas  coal.  The  Bering 
River  coal  as  mined  contained  fourteen  per  cent  ash  in 
dry  coal  and  had  a  heat  value  of  13.286  B.t.u.  Pocahontas 
coal  has  five  and  six-tenths  per  cent  ash  in  dry  coal  and 
a  heat  value  of  14.786  B.t.u.  per  pound.  In  order  to  pro- 
duce a  fuel  that  was  approximately  as  good  chemically  as 
Pocahontas,  the  Bering  River  coal  was  washed  and  cleaned 
until  it  contained  5.42  per  cent  of  ash  and  had  heat  value 
14.844  B.t.u. ;  but  it  required  a  loss  of  49.6  per  cent  of 
the  original  coal*  or  one-half  of  it. 

After  a  full  test  of  the  coal  thus  prepared,  the  expert 
report  says: 

In  spite  of  all  the  refinement  of  cleaning  and  washing  which 
reduced  the  ash  content  from  fourteen  and  six-hundredths  per 
cent  as  received  to  five  and  forty-two  hundredths  per  cent  in 
the  dry  coal  actually  fired,  involving  in  the  preparation  a  loss 
of  forty-nine  and  six-tenths  per  cent  of  the  fuel  as  mined, 
the  highest  rate  of  evaporation  was  5.04  pounds  of  water  from 
and  at  212°  F.  per  square  foot  of  water  heating  surface.  Since 
the  operation)  of  the  type  of  boiler  on  which  these  tests  were 
made   to   meet   full   speed   conditions   in   the   service,   requires 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    61 


evaporation  of  at  least  eight  pounds  per  square  foot  of  heating 
surface,  it  appears  that  Bering  River  coal  is  entirely  unsuited 
to  the  service  as  a  steam  coal,  and  it  is  not  recommended  for 
use  in  standard  navy  grate  bars. 

From  the  entire  report  these  three  things  stand  out 
clearly : 

(1)  That  the  only  kind  of  coal  which  was  considered 
standard  navy  coal  with  which  the  other  coals  must  be 
compared  is  Pocahontas. 

(2)  That  Pocahontas  coal  has  in  its  constitution 
something  which  the  chemist  cannot  test,  which  makes  it 
superior  to  other  coals.  Even  when  Bering  River  coal 
was  rendered  equal  chemically  to  Pocahontas,  it  was  found 
to  be  not  at  all  fitted  for  navy  use  under  forced  draft, 
while  Pocahontas  coal  was  a  perfect  navy  coal.  The 
twenty-knot  test  of  Bering  River  coal  gave  a  striking  proof 
of  what  would  happen  if  we  were  at  war,  and  our  ship 
was  using  even  an  apparently  good  coal  like  the  Bering 
River  coal,  and  the  enemy  ship  of  the  same  class  was 
using  as  good  navy  coal  as  the  Pocahontas.  If  it  wanted 
our  ship,  it  could  catch  it;  if  our  ship  wanted  the  enemy 
ship,  it  could  not  catch  it. 

(3)  That  since  Bering  River  coal  is  eliminated  as  a 
supply  for  our  Pacific  ships,  the  Pocahontas  and  New 
River  fields  will  continue  to  bear  the  burden  of  fueling 
them,  and  therefore  their  life  will  be  that  much  shortened. 
The  conclusion  is  the  more  confirmed  that  the  United 
States  should  set  aside,  before  it  is  too  late,  and  reserve 
a  large  portion  of  this  coal  for  its  future  use. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

GOVERNMENT   OWNED    COAL    LAND    LEASED    FOR    COMMERCIAL 

PURPOSES 

Maximum  Area  to  One  Lessee  2,560  Acres — Railroads  Al- 
lowed 2,560  Acres  for  Each  Two  Hundred  Miles  of  Main  Line 
Within  a  State,  and  Mine  for  Own  Use  Only — Royalty  Minimum 
Five  Cents  a  Ton  and  Certain  Rental — At  End  of  Twenty  Years 
a  New  Lease — Individuals  Can  Mine  for  Own  Use  Without 
Royalty — Municipalities  Mine  for  Domestic  Use  from  Area 
Depending  on  Population — Dangers  of  Uncontrolled  Mining, 
Especially  By  Small  Companies  That  Pay  No  Royalty — Munici- 
palities Ought  to  Be  Required  to  Build  Byproduct  Plant. 

For  the  present  the  United  States  government  has  with- 
drawn its  coal  land  from  sale  and  inaugurated  a  new 
leasing  system.  The  principal  provisions  embodied  in  the 
leasing  law  recently  enacted  by  Congress  are  briefly  as  fol- 
lows : 

(1)  The  control  of  the  leasing  is  under  the  Secretary 
ot  the  Interior. 

(2)  The  maximum  area  leased  to  one  lessee  is  two 
thousand,  five  hundred  and  sixty  acres. 

(3)  "No  company  or  corporation  operating  a  common 
carrier  railroad  shall  be  given  or  hold  a  lease  for  any  coal 
deposits  except  for  its  own  use  for  railroad  purposes,  and 
no  such  company  or  corporation  shall  receive  or  hold  more 
than  one  lease  for  each  two  hundred  miles  of  its  railroad 
line  within  the  state,  and  exclusive  of  spurs  or  switches, 
and  exclusive  of  parts. of  the  railroad  operated  mainly  by 
power  produced  otherwise  than  by  steam." 

(4)  The  lessee  shall  pay  to  the  United  States,  a 
royalty  not  less  than  five  cents  a  ton,  and  an  annual  ren- 
tal not  less  than  twenty-five  cents  an  acre  for  the  first 
year,  not  less  than  fifty  cents  an  acre  for  the  second,  third, 
fourth  and  fifth  years,  and  not  less  than  one  dollar  an 
acre  for  each  year  thereafter ;  this  rental  is  credited  against 
the  royalty  for  that  year. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    63 

This  rental  is  intended  as  a  minimum  royalty.  Thus, 
if  the  lease  is  not  operated  during  any  year  after  the  fifth, 
the  lessee  must  pay  the  government  $2560  on  a  two  thou- 
sand five  hundred  and  sixty  acre  lease.  But  if  it  is  oper- 
ated so  that  the  royalty  amounts  to  $2560,  then  there  is 
no  rental  to  pay. 

(5)  At  the  end  of  twenty  years,  the  Secretary  may 
make  "such  adjustment  of  terms  and  conditions  as  he 
sees  fit." 

(6)  Individuals,  or  associations  of  individuals,  may 
be  granted  the  privilege  of  mining  coal  for  their  own  use 
without  royalty. 

(7)  This  privilege  shall  not   extend  to  corporations. 

(8)  To  municipal  corporations  the  right  may  be  given 
to  "prospect  for,  mine  and  take  not  to  exceed  three  hun- 
dred and  twenty  acres  for  a  municipality  of  less  than 
one  thousand  population;  and  not  to  exceed  twelve 
hundred  and  eighty  for  a  municipality  of  not  less  than 
one  hundred  thousand  and  not  more  than  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  population ;  and  not  to  exceed  two 
thousand,  five  hundred  and  sixty  acres  for  a  municipality 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  population  or  more. 
Upon  condition  that  such  municipal  corporations  will  mine 
the  coal  therein  under  proper  conditions  and  dispose  of 
the  same  without  profit  to  residents  of  such  municipality, 
for  domestic  use." 

Concerning  the  terms  of  the  leases,  it  may  be  said : 
(1)  The  control  naturally  goes  to  the  Department  of 
the  Interior,  if  we  are  not  to  have  a  Department  of  Min- 
ing. It  is  well  enough,  providing  it  is  a  real  control  not 
only  of  the  leasing  but  also  of  the  operating  to  the  extent 
that  such  control  may  conserve  the  coal. 

The  chances  are  all  against  such  control.  In  the  first 
place,  it  has  never  been  exercised  anywhere  else,  why 
should  it  be  exercised  out  away  from  the  places  where  con- 
servation seemed  most  necessary.  In  the  second  place, 
the  chances  are  greatly  against  the  Secretary's  knowing 
what  proper  regulation  of  mining  means. 


64  COAL 


Taken, — as  is  generally  the  case, — from  a  profession  or 
business  that  does  not  require  any  knowledge  of  the  coal 
business,  and  thrust  into  a  position  in  which  myriads  of 
interests  confront  him,  he  may  well  feel  that,  if  it  is  re- 
ported to  him  that  a  lease  has  been  made,  that  settles  the 
matter  at  least  for  twenty  years. 

(2)  Limiting  a  railroad  lease  in  area  and  to  mining 
for  its  own  use  is  a  wise  provision.  But  if  the  mining  of 
railroad- owned  land  needs  control,  much  more  does  the 
mining  of  leased  land  by  a  railroad  need  it. 

(3)  The  provision  authorizing  readjustment  of  terms 
and  conditions  at  the  end  of  twenty  years  may  invite 
mining  of  "easy"  coal.  If  an  operator  has  a  lease  of  two 
thousand  five  hundred  and  sixty  acres,  each  acre  contain- 
ing five  thousand  tons  of  coal,  and  if  he  mines  one  thousand 
tons  a  day  for  two  hundred  days  each  year,  his  lease  will 
last  sixty-four  years. 

He  does  not  know  what  new  terms  and  conditions  may 
be  imposed  at  the  end  of  twenty  years.  So  he  plays  it 
safe  by  mining  as  much  coal  as  possible,  and  at  the  least 
possible  cost,  if  he  is  not  controlled. 

(4)  The  granting  to  an  individual  the  right  to  mine 
for  his  own  use,  without  payment  of  royalty,  is  a  very 
dangerous  provision,  if  conservation  is  important.  Such 
scattered  operations  could  not  be  properly  controlled,  even 
if  it  were  the  duty  of  some  one  to  do  it.  What  that  kind  of 
mining  leads  to  is  illustrated  by  what  it  did  lead  to  in 
the  early  days  of  anthracite  mining  and  in  such  fields  as 
the  George's  Creek  field  in  Maryland.  Holes  were  opened 
on  the  outcrop  of  a  vein.  Coal  was  dug  or  gouged  out 
until  water  became  troublesome,  or  ventilation  became  bad. 
The  hole  was  abandoned  and  a  new  hole  dug.  The  result 
was,  of  course,  that  the  fallen  roof  made  it  almost  impos- 
sible to  reopen  the  vein  at  the  same  place.  If  a  drift  is 
opened  at  another  place,  there  is  constant  danger  of  the 
water  that  is  pent  up  in  those  abandoned  holes  breaking 
through  and  flooding  the  new  mines  and  drowning  the 
men.     That  kind  of  disaster  has  happened.     One  cannot 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    65 


help  wondering  why  groups  of  irresponsible  persons  should 
be  allowed  to  mine  for  their  own  use,  while  the  same 
group  organized  and  responsible  cannot  mine  for  their 
own  use. 

(5)  The  provision  allowing  municipalities  to  hold  and 
mine  coal  land  is  not  so  dangerous  as  leasing  to  individuals. 
It  is  easier  to  subject  these  operations  to  regulation.  But 
it  hardly  seems  fair  to  lease  to  a  private  company  or  cor- 
poration a  tract  of  land  at  a  royalty,  and  then  take  its 
market  from  it, — or  a  large  part  of  its  market, — by  allow- 
ing cities  to  mine  their  own  coal,  for  which  they  pay  no 
royalty,  and  which  they  sell  to  their  citizens  at  no  profit 
to  the  city.  The  only  way  the  competing  company  can  get 
any  of  the  domestic  business  is  by  mining  "easier"  coal 
than  the  city  is  mining. 

If  this  provision  had  attached  to  it  the  condition  that 
municipalities  granted  such  a  free  lease  should  burn  the 
coal  in  byproduct  ovens  and  sell  to  the  citizens  gas  and 
coke  for  domestic  use,  it  would  have  been  admirable  for 
the  city.  It  would  conserve  coal  and  also  be  a  source  of 
revenue  to  the  city  from  the  byproducts.  It  could  save 
gasoline  by  use  of  benzol,  and  furnish  sulphate  of  am- 
monia to  its  citizens  to  fertilize  their  gardens. 

By  the  control  which  is  suggested  here  is  meant  the 
control  that  I  later  suggest  for  all  the  coal  fields,  both 
East  and  West. 


CHAPTER  IX 

COAL    LAND    IN    THE    HANDS    OF    PRIVATE    OWNERS 

Three  Parties  to  Be  Dealt  With — States  Should  Co-operate 
in  Conservation — Coal  Is  a  Large  Part  of  the  Basis  of  Their 
Prosperity — United  States  Does  Now  Reach  Across  State  Boun- 
daries and  Controls  Their  Citizens — Coal  More  Important  Than 
Railroads — Owners  Want  Relief  from  Monopoly  of  Labor  and 
Restrictive  Hostile  Legislation — Railroads  and  Steel  Companies 
Should  Own  Some  Land,  But  Not  Mine  Commercial  Coal. 

If  the  United  States  now  owned  the  coal  land  and 
were  starting  its  coal  policy  all  over  again,  it  would  not 
sell  any  of  the  coal  with  the  surface.  Its  present  policy 
in  dealing  with  its  Western  coal  land  shows  that.  If  it 
had  retained  title  to  the  coal,  and  had  it  operated  under 
the  regulations  and  restrictions  we  are  now  advocating, 
billions  of  tons  of  our  best!  coal,  which  are  now  hopelessly 
lost,  would  have  been  saved.  We  can  truly  say  that  it 
could  have  been  done,  but  we  can  as  truly  say  that  it 
would  not  have  been  done, — and  that  is  the  discouraging 
thought.  The  government  in  the  leasing  policy  that  it  is 
now  launching,  as  far  as  appearances  indicate,  is  just 
moving  on  in  the  same  old  prodigal  way.  It  is  easy  to 
sum  up  the  shortcomings  of  our  predecessors  and  condemn 
them  for  waste  of  our  heritage,  and  by  implication  say 
what  we  would  have  done.  It  is  a  safe  pastime  to  scold 
the  shades  of  our  ancestors  for  their  sins. 

However  much  it  may  relieve  our  feelings  to  berate 
the  coal  industry  of  the  past,  it  will  not  fill  the  bins  of 
our  descendants.  Will  they  summon  our  shades  to  the 
bar  of  judgment  and  convict  us  of  like  failure  to  remedy 
the  evils  which  we  see  more  clearly  than  they  did?  Wise 
and  earnest  coal  men  in  convention  and  at  banquets  make 
speeches  pointing  out  conditions  that  ought  to  be  changed 
and  suggesting  remedies.  Then  they  eat  their  banquet 
dinner  and  feel  that  they  have  done  their  best  in  pointing 

rift 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    67 

out  the  evils,  or  they  lean  back  and  say:  "No  man  can 
reform  a  great  industry  in  which  so  many  people  have  to 
he  consulted  and  satisfied, — then,  there  are  Labor  and  the 
General  Government." 

The  problem  is  not  easy:  vested  rights,  rights  of  pri- 
vate property.     A  man's  coal  mine  is  his  castle. 

The  American  people  have  been  brought  up  on  these 
principles.  But  hard  as  it  may  seem,  resist  if  we  choose, 
control  of  some  kind  is  coming.  If  a  well-thought-out 
way,  devised  by  the  wisest  of  those  most  vitally  interested, 
is  not  the  outcome,  then  an  ill-thought-out  way,  devised 
by  ignorance  and  selfishness,  will  come. 

There  are  three  parties  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  subject. 

1.     The  States  in  Whkh  the  Coal  Land  Is  Situated 

States -are  naturally  and  properly  jealous  of  any  in- 
fringement of  their  prerogatives.  They  are  quick  to  re- 
sent any  action  by  the  Federal  government,  which  seems 
to  control  their  citizens  to  their  disadvantage,  for  the  sake 
of  advantage  to  the  citizens  of  other  States.  The  Congress 
in  he  recent  law  authorizing  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior 
to  lease  the  Western  coal  land,  recognized  States'  rights 
in  the  proviso. 

Provided,  That  nothing  in  this  act  shall  be  construed  or 
held  to  affect  the  rights  of  the  States  or  other  local  authority 
to  exercise  any  rights  which  they  may  have,  including  the 
right  to  levy  and  collect  taxes  upon  improvements,  output  of 
mines,  or  other  rights,  property,  or  assets  of  any  lessee  of 
the  United  States. 

But  the  coal  States  are  the  States  that  are  benefited 
more  than  any  others  by  any  policy  which  prolongs  the 
life  of  their  coal  fields.  The  coal  industry  is  the  basis  of 
a  large  part  of  their  wealth  and  prosperity.  The  coal  in- 
terest of  each  State  is  closely  related  to  the  coal  interest 
of  every  other  State,  whether  that  State  is  seller  or  buyer 
of  coal. 


68  COAL 

President  Roosevelt,  as  long  as  May,  1908,  called  the 
Governors  of  all  the  States  into  conference,  with  a  view 
to  a  concerted  action  toward  conserving  our  natural  re- 
sources. 

He  felt  that  it  was  a  great  subject  which  affected  every 
state,  and  that  it  is  'the  duty  of  all  the  states  to  co-operate 
with  each  other  and  with  the  Federal  government  in  con- 
serving and  properly  using  our  natural  resources. 

2.     The  Federal  Government  Interest 

The  Federal  government  represents  the  whole  people. 
It  must  act  in  a  constitutional  way  but  it  must  act,  if  any 
vital  interest  that  concerns  the  whole  people  is  involved. 
It  is  incumbent  upon  it  to  find  a  way, — a  just  but  effective 
way.  We  have  come  more  and  more  to  realize  that  we 
are  a  nation, — a  just  and  righteous  nation  but  a  vigorous 
one.  When  we  were  at  war  the  whole  people  were  at  war. 
It  did  not  need  that  any  State  should  declare  war.  Every 
resource  that  was  useful  for  the  government  was  taken 
anywhere,  in  its  own  way.  State  lines  are  not  Chinese 
walls,  to  shut  in  a  commodity  which  is  needed  in  another 
State.  No  tariff  wall  separates  State  from  State.  The 
general  government  reaches  out  into  the  States  and  col- 
lects internal  revenue  tax,  income  tax,  and  excess  profits 
tax. 

It  thus  takes  from  a  citizen  of  a  State  what  he  claims 
to  own,  the  product  of  his  farm,  or  factory,  or  mine,  pro- 
duced by  his  own  toil  or  skill.  Railroads  chartered  by 
the  States  engaged  in  interstate  commerce  are  held  to  be 
doing  a  business  so  vital  to  the  whole  people,  that  they  are 
performing  a  Federal  government  function.  When  re- 
turned to  private  ownership  after  they  had  been  taken 
over  by  the  government,  they  were  given  back  in  a  co- 
ordinated form  different  from  their  original  form.  They 
have  the  wages  of  their  employes  fixed,  they  have  their 
freight  and  passenger  rates  fixed  J  the  income  fori  six 
months  guaranteed,  the  amount  of  dividend  on  their  stock 
is  limited,  and  a  portion  of  their  earnings  is  taken  from 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    69 


the  prosperous  roads  and  given  to  the  weak  roads,  or  to 
the  general  government. 

Fuel  (of  which  coal  is  chief)  is,  if  possible,  more  im- 
portant than  railroads,  and  deserving  of  as  much  consid- 
eration. A  railroad,  if  destroyed,  may  be  built  again,  but 
coal  destroyed  can  never  be  renewed.  The  destruction  of 
all  our  railroads  would  be  by  no  means  as  disastrous  as 
the  loss  of  all  our  coal. 

3.     Owners  and  Operators  of  the  Mines  and  Coal  Lands 

Operators  have  for  years  been  hoping  for  some  help- 
ful aid  that  may  bring  order  out  of  the  chaos  of  the  past. 
Any  operator  who  says :  'Things  are  all  right ;  just  let 
us  alone,"  is  to  be  suspected.  Operators  and  owners  of 
mines  long  for  the  time  and  the  way  in  which  they  can 
earn  a  reasonable  profit  on  their  investments  of  money, 
work,  and  brains.  They  wonder  if  the  time  will  come 
when  they  may  escape  the  crushing  between  the  nether 
and  upper  millstones  of  union  labor  and  legislation. 

First.    The  Nether  Millstone  of  a  Monopoly  of  Labor. 

In  several  states,  and  a  large  part  of  others,  the  opera- 
tor cannot  employ  any  other  than  union  labor.  If  a  non- 
union man  is  employed  all  the  union  men  will  quit.  And 
not  only  will  they  quit  but  they  will  do  all  in  their  power, 
even  to  the  extent  of  the  use  of  violence,  to  prevent  any 
others  from  working.  Having  a  monopoly  of  labor,  they 
are  able  to  enforce  their  own  terms  as  to  wages  and  time 
of  work.  Every  new  scale  is  an  occasion  for  a  strike  or 
an  advance  in  wages  and  more  burdensome  concessions. 
Unless  the  operator  can  sell  his  coal  at  such  advance  in 
price  as  to  cover  the  added  cost,  the  new  costs  eat  up  his 
already  too  narrow  margin,  and  often  bring  serious  loss. 

Second.     The  Upper  Millstone  of  Legislation. 

1.  State  legislation  to  perpetuate  union  control  of 
labor. 

In  Illinois  it  is  unlawful  for  any  man  to  engage  in 
practical  mining  unless  he  has  had  two  years'  experience 
in  the  mines  of  the  State,  and  has  a  certificate  from  a  com- 


70  COAL 

mission  made  up  largely  of  practical  miners,  and  of  course 
union  miners.  It  is  evident  that  none  but  union  men  can 
get  a  certificate.  No  other  could  have  acquired  the  ex- 
perience demanded.  It  would  do  a  non-union  man  no 
good  to  have  a  certificate,  as  he  would  not  be  allowed  to 
work  anyway  as  non-union.  It  seems,  also,  that  the  law 
isj  so  framed  as  to  shut  out  skilled  men  from  other  States 
who  would  be  willing  to  work  during  a  strike,  as  they 
have  not  had  two  years'  experience  in  Illinois  and  have 
not  its  certificate. 

2.  State  legislation  requiring  operators  to  pay  shot- 
firers  to  provide  washhouses,  to  pay  workmen's  compen- 
sation. 

These  are  proper  laws,  but  add  to  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion. It  is  rendered  harder  to  increase  selling  price  to 
cover  these  increases  in  cost  of  production  by  such  federal 
laws  as: 

3.  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law.  This  law  is  a  constant 
menace  to  operators  who  even  think  of  agreeing  on  a  price 
that  will  pay  a  profit,  or  limiting  production  to  actual  de- 
mand, or  setting  up  a  common  selling  agency  so  as  to  re- 
duce selling  expense. 

4.  Federal  legislation  compelling  railroads  to  accept 
switches  to  new  mines  and  pay  for  the  switches  indirectly, 
even  when  it  is  known  that  no  new  mine  is  needed  and 
that  its  output  will  be  just  so  much  added  to  the  already 
overproduction  and  so  much  more  to  ruinous  competition. 
Thus  there  has  been  constant  increase  in  cost  of  produc- 
tion and  constant  restraint,  and  constant  fierce  competi- 
tion that  prevents  the  operator  from  covering  his  new  costs 
by  advance  in  selling  price. 

Third.  Attitude  of  Operators  Toward  Helpful  Federal 
Control. 

The  attitude  of  operators  toward  proper  government 
help  in  correcting  present  chaotic  conditions  is  well  ex- 
pressed by  George  H.  Cushing,  in  a  recent  speech  on 
"Federal  Control." 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    71 


The  following  are  some  extracts: 

I  have  a  keen  recollection  that  throughout  all  the  years  I 
have  been  associated  with  the  coal\  industry,  there  has  been  a 
constant  demand  that  the  federal  authorities  extend  some 
extraordinary  protection  and  aid  to  coal.  Since  we  have  en- 
dured a  year  and  a  half  of  government  regulation,  many  coal 
men  say  now  that  they  were  mistaken  all  the  while.  Rather 
than  its  being  true  that  coal  men  have  reversed  themselves 
after  this  experience  with  the  fuel  administration,  they  stand 
where  they  always  stood.  They  need,  they  want,  and  they 
must  have  help.  Our  objection  is  not  to  Federal  or  government 
interest  in  the  coal  business.  It  is  wholly  to  the  objectionable 
manner  in  which  that  interest  expressed  itself.  What  coal 
men  have  really  wanted  through  all  these  years  was  that 
competition  in  coal  should  be  made  comparable  to  the  com- 
petition in  other  commodities.  It  has  never  been  that,  it  is 
not  that  now.  The  producer  in  steel  has  to  compete  only  with 
those  who  can  get  their  portion  of  the  limited  supply  of  iron 
ore.  The  producer  of  shoes  has  to  compete  only  with  those 
who  can  get  their  portion  of  the  fixed  supply  of  leather.  Even 
the  producer  of  clothing  has  to  compete  only  with  those  who 
can  get  a  portion  of  this  year's  crop  of  flax,  wool  or  cotton. 
The  producer  of  coal  has  to  compete  not  alone  with  those 
plants  already  organized,  but  with  all  those  who  can  at  any 
moment  open  coal  mines  into  the  supply  of  coal  that  is  avail- 
able for  the  human  race  for  all  time.  In  this  respect  com- 
petition in  coal  is  not  comparable  to  the  competition  in  any 
other  line  of  business.  I  believe  we  can  safely  say  that — 
by  legislative  action  if  necessary — we  as  a  people  should  set 
out  to  hold  the  reserve  coal  land  until  it  is  needed.  Thus 
would  the  competition  in  coal  be  made  comparable  to  that  in 
other  lines  of  business.  Whether  we  wish  to  recognize  the 
fact  or  not,  it  remains  true  that  coal  has,  in  public  opinion, 
been  classified  as  being  among  the  public  utilities,  concerning 
the  affairs  of  which  the  people  themselves  are  going  to  have 
a  word  to  say.  It  must  be  for  some  one  to  think  out  and 
suggest  the  proper  line  of  co-operative  action  as  between  the 
industry  and  the  government. 

We  have  "thought  out"  a  line  of  action  in  reference 
to  the  semi-bituminous  or  navy  coal  in  West  Virginia, 
and  there  remains  the  rest  of  the  great  bituminous  field. 
Especially  are  we  now  considering  the  coal  lands  in  Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Michigan,  West  Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Alabama. 


72  COAL 


If  we  neglect  the  fact  that  these  lands  are  in  the 
various  States,  and  assume  that  a  way  can  be  found  by 
which  the  States  and  the  Federal  government  will  co- 
operate in  full  accord,  we  have  to  deal  as  a  unit  with  four 
classes  of  owners;  (1)  Railroad  owners  of  coal  land;  (2) 
corporations  engaged  in  manufacturing  essentials  that 
bought  coal  lands  from  which  'they  are  getting  their  pres- 
ent supply  and  which  assures  them  of  a  supply  for  an 
estimated  time  in  the  future;  (3)  corporations  mining 
commercial  coal  either  from  their  own  or  leased  land ; 
(4)  individual  owners,  including  those  who  have  bought 
land  and  are  holding  it  en  bloc,  as  well  as  farm  owners. 

Coal  Land  Owned  By  Railroads 

Railroads  should  not  be  permitted  to  operate  a  com- 
mercial mine. 

There  is  very  considerable  opposition  to  railroads  own- 
ing any  coal  land  at  all.  This;  opposition  has  been  created 
and  fostered  by  railroads  owning  commercial  mines  and 
the  oppressive  use  they  have  made  of  the  mines.  When 
Congress  started  on  its  drive  to  correct  the  abuses  charged 
against  the  railroads,  they  fixed  upon  giving  of  rebates 
and  rate  discrimination.  This  was  bad  enough,  but  not 
nearly  so  bad  as  discrimination  in  car  supply.  This  was 
a  form  of  oppression  that  it  was  impossible  fully  to  de- 
stroy. The  various  State  commissions  and  the  United 
States  Commerce  Commission  tried  to  remedy  it.  They 
ruled  that  a  railroad  should  furnish  cars  to  each  mine 
on  its  line  in  proportion  to  its  rated  output. 

But  when  times  were  dull,  prices  low,  and  there  was 
little  demand,  the  tracks  of  the  independent  mines  were 
filled  with  cars  they  could  not  use,  or  which  took  them 
a  long  time  to  use.  Then,  when  demand  was  great  and 
prices  high,  the  independent  mines  had  no  cars,  or  cars 
for  only  part  of  a  day.  They  were  told  they  had  been 
furnished  their  quota.  The  cost  of  what  they  did  produce 
was  high  and  could  not  be  sold  at  a  profit.     The  railroad 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    73 

owned  mines  were  supplied  with  all  the  cars  they  could  use. 

The  effect  was  twofold : 

First.  The  railroad  coal  had  the  market  to  itself  when 
prices  were  high  and  the  mines  made  money. 

Second.  The  independent  mines  were  idle  when  prices 
were  high,  and  losing  money  when  prices  were  low,  and 
were  forced  into  bankruptcy,  and  bought  by  the  only  com- 
pany that  could  risk  the  purchase,  that  is,  by  the  railroad, 
and  that  at  a  ruinously  low  price.  So  strong  became  the 
complaint  of  the  abuse  that  the  roads  made  of  their  right 
to  sell  coal  in  the  market  that  Congress  passed  a  law  which, 
it  was  supposed,  would  fully  cure  the  abuse. 

It  allowed  railroads  to  own  coal  land  and  mines,  but 
it  forbade  them  to  haul  coal  owned  by  them  except  for 
their  own  use.  But  this  is  practically  evaded  by  the  rail- 
road's selling  its  coal  to  a  company  owned  by  itself.  It 
amounts  to  the  railroad's  owning  the  coal  just  before  it 
starts  on  its  journey,  not  owning  it  while  on  its  way,  and 
then  owning  it  when  its  journey  is  over. 

A  railroad  that  mines  commercial  coal  and  sells  even 
indirectly  in  the  market  has  the  ability,  and  it  is  charged 
exercises  it,  of  doing  two  wrongs. 

(1)  Use  its  commercial  coal  to  compel  operators  to 
sell  coal  to  the  railroad  even  below  the  cost  of  production. 
Thus,  if  the  coal  land  of  the  railroad  is  at  one  end  of  its 
line  and  its  output  is  not  enough  to  meet  the  railroad's  re- 
quirement, or  it  prefers  to  buy  the  coal  it  needs  at  the 
other  end  of  its  line,  instead  of  mining  its  own  coal  and 
hauling  it  to  the  other  end  of  its  line,  it  offers  to  buy 
coal  at  a  very  low  price.  If  the  operator  does  not  accept 
its  offer,  it  ships  its  coal  (through  the  agency  of  its  sub- 
sidiary company),  sells  it  in  the  market  at  the  low  price, 
breaks  the  market,  and  buys  its  year's  supply  at  its  own 
price.  It  indemnifies  itself,  of  course,  for  any  small  loss 
it  suffered  by  getting  a  year's  supply  at  a  bargain.    . 

(2)  Using  its  coal  to  force  sale  to  itself  of  a  desirable 


74  COAL 

mine  by  indirection.  The  railroad  wants  to  own  a  certain 
valuable  mine  on  its  line.  It  contracts  for  and  buys  its 
entire  output  at  a  fair  price.  As  soon  as  the  former  cus- 
tomers of  this  mine  have  made  contracts  with  other  com- 
panies for  their  supply,  the  railroad  suddenly  ceases  to 
take  any  coal  from  the  mine  from  which  it  had  been  tak- 
ing its  entire  output.  The  mine  is  left  without  customers 
for  its  coal.  The  condition  of  the  company  owning  the 
mine  is  known  beforehand  by  the  railroad,  and  the  occa- 
sion shrewdly  timed.  The  company  is  forced  into  bank- 
ruptcy, or  is  forced  to  sell  to  the  railroad  at  its  own  price. 
(3)     It  is  good  policy  for  a  railroad  to  own  coal  land. 

Railroads  are  essential  to  the  business,  almost  to  the 
life,  of  a  nation.  Coal  is  essential  to  the  life  of  the  major- 
ity of  the  railroads  now,  and  to  all  of  them  in  the  long 
run.  It  is,  therefore,  dangerous  for  a  railroad  to  be  com- 
pelled to  stand  helplessly  still  and  see  all  the  coal  on  its 
line,  or  in  its  immediate  vicinity,  mined  and  sold.  It  ought 
to  be  able  to  own  an  area  of  coal  land  sufficient  for  its 
future  supply  for  a  reasonable  time.  While  this  is  true, 
the  extent  of  that  ownership  and  its  use  must  be  regu- 
lated by  some  authority,  as  by  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission.  This  control  should  be  directed  to  three 
things : 

(1)  The  railroad  shall  not  by  its  lessees,  or  directly, 
or  through  a  subsidiary  company,  sell  coal  in  the  market. 
This  might  not  preclude  different  roads  from  exchanging 
coal  that  may  in  certain  events  be  more  convenient  and 
reduce  a  length  of  haul. 

(2)  The  railroad  shall  not  own  a  larger  area  of  coal 
land  than  is  its  proper  proportion  in  the  field  in  which  the 
road  is  located.  That  is,  the  railroad  shall  not  buy  so  as 
to  menace  the  coal  supply  of  the  zone  for  other  legitimate 
uses,  such  as  for  domestic  use.  And  it  must  not  own  land 
held  purely  for  speculation. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    75 

(3)  Its  coal  should  be  mined  under  the  same  control 
as  that  described  later  as  applying  to  all  coal  lands  in  that 
field. 

Corporations  Which  Make  Essentials  and  Which  Secure 
a  Future  Supply  By  Buying  Coal  Land 

Such  corporations  as  the  United  States  Steel  Company 
and  the  Jones  and  Laughlin  Steel  Company  are  buying 
large  areas  of  coal  land.  The  United  States  Steel  Company 
has  large  areas  in  Pennsylvania,  Illinois  and  Indiana. 
It  has  large  areas  in  West  Virginia,  which  it  has  leased 
and  is  operating  by  a  subsidiary  company.  Little  can  be 
said  against  the  use  it  is  making  of  its  coal.  It  is  taking 
it  to  Gary,  Indiana,  and  mixing  it  with  a  sturdier  coal 
from  Western  Pennsylvania  and  Illinois,  to  make  coke, 
and  is  saving  byproducts  of  sulphate  of  ammonia,  benzol, 
toluol  and  gas.  The  West  Virginia  coal  it  is  using  be- 
longs to  the  Pocahontas  field,  and  is  included  in  the  navy 
coal  reservation.  We  have  already  said  that  the  navy 
reservation  is  made  large  so  that  reasonable  exchange 
may  be  arranged  after  careful  consideration  of  the  whole 
field.  Steel  is  necessary  for  railroads.  They  must  have 
steel  rails,  steel  cars,  steel  bridges,  and  steel  for  station 
construction.  Not  every  coal  is  good  coking  coal.  The 
coking  coals  are  being  depleted,  to  be  burned  in  various 
uses  for  which  a  non-coking  coal  is  almost,  or  quite,  as  sat- 
isfactory. So  it  seems  that  steel  companies  are  wise  in 
securing  and  holding  a  proper  area  of  coal  for  future 
use.  Steel  companies  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  mine 
coal  for  any  other  than  their  own  use. 

Strong  steel  companies  will  not  have  any  disposition 
to  mine  coal  for  sale,  in  general,  but,  if  so  disposed,  they 
might  sell  their  coal  for  a  time  at\  a  low  price,  in  order  to 
break  the  price  of  coal  that  they  want  to  buy,  either  to 
supplement  their  own  output  or  to  save  depletion  of  their 
own  coal  land.  Of  course  they  can  recoup  even  a  tem- 
porary loss  on  their  coal  sold  in  the  low  price  which  they 
get  on  the  large  amount  they  buy.     Their  land   should, 


76  COAL 


of  course,  be  subject  to  the  same  regulation  as  to  methods 
of  mining  as  we  propose  for  all  other  coal.  Neither  ought 
steel  companies  to  bev  allowed  to  own  an  area  of  coal 
which  is  out  of  proportion  to  the  area  of  coal  needed  for 
domestic  uses. 

Corporations    Which   Operate   Mines  for   Commercial 

Sale 

These  are  operated  either  by  their  owners  or  under 
lease.  After  deducting  the  Pocahontas  and  New  River 
field,  the  anthracite  field,  railroad  owned  land,  steel  com- 
pany land,  there  remains  a  large  area  owned  or  operated 
by  corporations,  or  that  is  in  the  hands  of  private  owners. 

We  have  seen  that  there  has  been  great  waste  in  min- 
ing and  using  coal  in  the  past  and  that  some  of  the  same 
conditions  as  before  are  returning.  We  believe  that  the 
people  demand  some  change  in  the  management  of  this 
essential  held  in  trust  for  them.  The  industry  is  appeal- 
ing to  the  government  for  relief  and  some  helpful  control. 
The  operators  and  owners  will  welcome  a  wise  solution 
which  will  stabilize  their  business. 


CHAPTER  X 

TO    WHAT    DEPARTMENT    DOES    MINING    BELONG? 


Secretary  of  Mining  and  Transportation  Desirable — Both 
Need  a  Friend  at  Court:  Coal  Needs  Protection  from  Railroads 
— Coal  and  Railroads  Co-operate  in  Zoning — If  not  a  Secretary, 
Then  Federal  Commissioner  of  Mining — Divide  Coal  Field 
Into  Districts — Inspect  Each  Mine  and  File  Records — Use  the 
Records  in  Fixing  Zones,  Prices — Help  to  Be  Given  to  High 
Cost  Mines,  in  Compelling  Complete  Recovery  of  Coal. 

First.     Shall    There   Be   a   Secretary   of  Mining   and 
Transportation? 

Many  believe  that  the  great  coal  industry  is  entitled  to 
a  Cabinet  Secretary.  Labor  has  its  Secretary,  Agriculture 
has  its  Secretary,  surely  Coal  Mining  is  of  enough  impor- 
tance and  is  enough  in  need  of  government  care  to  be 
given  a  Secretary. 

If  coal  mining  is  to  be  joined  with  any  other  industry, 
its  logical  mate  is  transportation.  Other  industries,  as 
agriculture  and  manufacturing,  furnish  freight  to  the  rail- 
roads, but  coal  not  only  furnishes  a  very  important  part 
of  their  freight,  but  supplies  the  fuel  which  drives  the 
engines  and  trains. 

1.     Coal  Mining  Needs  a  Friend  At  Court 

"Transportation  needs  a  friend  at  Court,"  was  the  sum- 
ming up  of  the  vigorous  argument  made  recently  by  Rob- 
ert S.  Lovitt,  President  of  the  Union  Pacific  System,  in 
favor  of  a  Secretary  of  Transportation.  Most  assuredly 
coal  can  join  him  in  a  like  plea.  A  considerable  part  of 
his  arraignment  of  railroad  conditions  can  be  endorsed  by 
coal  men,  if  we  substitute  "coal"  for  "railroad."    He  says : 

Than  the  railroad  business  none  is  more  vital  to  the  very 
life  of  the  nation,  yet  neither  in  the  President's  Cabinet  nor 
anywhere  in  the  vast  machinery  constituting  the  Government 


77 


78  COAL 


of  the  United  States,  is  there  an  officer  of  any  kind  or  descrip- 
tion whose  duty  it  is  to  look  after  its  interest,  to  defend  it, 
to  speak  for  it,  or  to  say  a  word  for  Justice  in  its  behalf.  Run- 
ning through  the  statutes  of  the  books  of  Congress,  there  is  a 
purpose  to  curb  and  repress,  unrelieved  by  helpful,  constructive, 
encouraging  provision. 

2.     Advantages  Arising  from  Joint  Control  of  Coal  and 
Transportation 

(a)  Protection  of  coal  from  railroads.  Railroads  con- 
sume part  of  the  output  of  the  mines.  In  the  past  rail- 
roads have  taken  advantage  of  their  control  of  car  supply 
and  of  the  desire  of  a  coal  company  to  have  a  steady 
customer  in  a  railroad,  in  order  to  beat  down  the  price 
of  their  contract  coal.  Railroads  have  often  bought  their 
coal  below  the  cost  of  production.  The  danger  of  having 
divided  control  was  illustrated  when  railroads  were  un- 
der Federal  control.  The  Railroad  Administrator  tried  to 
•force  coal  companies  to  sell  railroad  coal  at  a  lower  price 
than  other  consumers  had  to  pay.,  in  order  that  the  rail- 
roads might  show  low  operating  cost.  If  he  had  succeeded, 
the  coal  companies  would  have  been  ruined,  or  they  must 
sell  coal  to  the  other  consumers  at  a  price  greater  than  a 
fair  price,  in  order  to  cover  loss  on  the  coal  furnished  to 
the  railroads. 

(b)  Co-operation  in  storing  coal.  Later  I  outline  a 
plan  for  making  coal  a  less  seasonal  industry.  To  this  end, 
the  co-operation  of  coal  companies  and  railroads  is  essen- 
tial. 

(c)  Co-operation  in  zoning  the  coal  industry.  If  coal 
mining  is  to  be  zoned,  railroads  must  confine  the  freight 
in  coal  to  the  zone  in  which  it  originates,  except  the  spe- 
cial cases  in  which  crosshauling  is  allowed.  In  short,  if 
a  controlling  force,  friendly  to  both  railroads  and  coal, 
regulated  both,  more  uniform  mining  conditions  would  be 
promoted,  much  of  this  complaint  and  recrimination,  es- 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    79 


pecially  about  car  service,  which  is  constantly  heard  now, 
would  cease. 

Second.     A  Federal  Commissioner  of  Mining  in  the  In- 
terior Department 

Coal  mining  is  itself  broad  enough  and  complex  enough 
xo  require  the  care  of  a  department. 

Transportation  might  well  be  under  a  department.  But 
railroads  are  now  under  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior, 
and  part  of  the  coal  is  under  the  same  department. 

In  determining  what  can  be  done,  or  ought  to  be  done 
when  the  rest?  of  the  coal  land  is  brought  under  control  of 
that  department,  we  shall  have  to  be  guided  partly  by 
what  has  been  done  with  other  subjects  brought  under  the 
same  regulation.  We  can  get  some  hints  in  what  has  been 
done  in  setting  up  machinery  for  railroad  regulation  in 
regulating  coal  leasing,  and  the  survey  of  the  public  lands 
law  establishing  Federal  Control  of  coal  'in  the  United 
States.    A  skeleton  of  such  law  may  be  outlined  as  follows : 

1.  There  shall  be  established  in  the  Department  of  the 
Interior  an  office  to  be  denominated  The  Federal  Mining 
Bureau,  whose  duty  it  shall  be,  under  the  direction  of  the 
head  of  the  department,  to  superintend,  execute,  and  per- 
form all  acts  and  things  touching  the  mining  and  using 
of  coal  as  are  now  directed  by  this  law,  or  which  hereafter 
shall  be  assigned  to  the  said  Bureau. 

2.  The  executive  duties  of  said  Bureau  shall  be  vested 
in  the  Federal  Commissioner  of  Mining,  who  shall  be  ap- 
pointed by v  the  President,  by  and  with  consent  of  the 
Senate. 

3.  The  Commissioner  shall  divide  the  entire  coal-min- 
ing fields  of  the  United  States  into  Districts.  Each  District 
shall,  as  nearly  as  possible,  consist  of  a  single  coal-mining 
State. 

In  each  District  shall  be  established  an  office,  situated 
as  nearly  central  as  possible,  preferably  in  the  capital  of 
the  State  which  constitutes  the  District. 


80  COAL 


4.  An  Assistant  Commissioner  shall  be  appointed  by 
the  President,  with  consent  of  the  Senate,  for  each  Sub- 
District.  He  shall  be  charged  with  the  executive  duties  of 
the  district  to  which  he  is  appointed. 

5.  In  the  District  office  shall  be  employed  such  clerks 
and  other  employees  as  the  Assistant  Commissioner  shall 
find  necessary  for  the  proper  conduct  of  the  business  relat- 
ing to  the  district.  There  shall  be  kept  in  this  office  all 
the  reports  of  the  Inspectors,  maps  of  the  various  mines, 
and  such  other  records  as  are  made  for  the  proper  dis- 
charge of  the  duties  of  the  office. 

These  records  are  solely  for  the  use  of  the  Commis- 
sioner in  making  his  rulings,  and  are  not  open  to  general 
inspection  in  such  way  as  to  advertise  either  the  favorable 
or  adverse  condition  of  any  mine.  Of  course,  each  mine 
record  is  open  to  the  Officers  of  their  own  mine. 

6.  Inspectors  shall  be  appointed  by  the  Commissioner. 
They  shall  be  men  familiar  with  mines  and  mining,  espe- 
cially in  the  district  in  which  they  are  to  act.  They  shall 
be  mining  engineers  who  have  been  trained  and  fitted  both 
by  education  and  experience  in  the  mining  industry,  or 
superintendents  of  experience  who  have  had  such  training 
as  will  fit  them  for  the  duty  required.  These  Inspectors 
shall  be  sworn  officers  of  the  government,  and  shall  also 
certify  every  return  under  oath. 

7.  Duties  of  Inspectors.  As  rapidly  as  possible,  each 
mining  operation  in  each  district  shall  be  thoroughly  in- 
spected, especially  with  reference  to  these  facts :  ( 1 ) 
Present  and  prospective  percentage  of  recovery.  What 
coal  is  being  left  at  top  or  bottom ;  what  amount  of  pillars 
are  being  left  undrawn,  without  any  intention  of  recover- 
ing the  coal.  What  coal  along  abandoned  limits  of  the 
acreage  is  being  unwon.  (2)  How  much  and  what  part 
of  the  lost  coal  might  be  recovered.  (3)  Estimated  cost 
of  recovering  any  coal  that  is  now  being  abandoned,  com- 
pared with  the  normal  cost  in  the  same  mine. 

8.  Other  Data  to  be  Secured,  (a)  Actual  capacity 
output  for  each  mine  in  the  district. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    81 

(b)  If  possible,  actual  outupt  of  each  mine  for  as 
many  years  as  it  has  been  operated. 

(c)  Cause  of  the  low  or  high  proportion  of  actual  out- 
put to  capacity  output. 

(d)  Map  showing  location  of  each  mine  and  its  record. 

(e)  Cost  of  production  in  each  mine,  if  possible. 

(f)  Consumption  of  coal  in  each  portion  of  the  district. 
The  principal  uses  to  be  made  of  these  data  are : 

(a)  Cost  of  recovery  of  any  coal  which  is  being  lost 
because  it  costs  too  much  to  win  it,  is  estimated  for  use 
in  a  plan  of  government  help  in  such  recovery. 

(b)  Location  of  mines  and  location  of  consumption  and 
actual  output  will  be  used  as  a  guide  in  determining  bounds 
of  zones. 

(c)j  Capacity  of  mines  will  be  used  to  determine  when 
any  new  mines  may  be  needed. 

(d)  Cost  of  production  may  be  used  in  fixing  selling 
prices. 

Having  now  a  Federal  Mining  Bureau,  charged  with 
the  duty  of  collecting  information  and  data  concerning  the 
coal  industry,  and  making  use  of  such  information  in 
encouraging,  helping,  regulating,  and  restraining  where 
necessary,  we  must  next  consider  some  things  which  ought 
to  be  done  for  each  of  the  classes  of  coal  land. 

(1)  Coal  land  operated  for  the  government  for  its 
exclusive  use. 

(2)  Coal  land  owned  by  the  government  and  leased  for 
commercial  use. 

(3)  Coal  land  heid  by  private  owners,  which  needs 
regulation  in  mining  coal  and  using  coal  after  it  is  mined. 

(4)  Coal  land  held  by  private  owners,  which  does  not 
need  regulation  in  mining  but  probably  in  selling-price  of 
coal. 


CHAPTER    XI 

HOW  THE   BUREAU   OF    MINING   WILL    CONTROL  THE    MINING 

INDUSTRY 

Coal  Land  Operated  for  Government  Use  Exclusively— 
Leaseholders — Majority  of  Going  Mines  Are  Leased — Buy 
Lease  and  Equipment — Buy  Coal  Land  Continue  the  Lease — 
Lease  the  Lease — Coal  Land  Not  Now  Operated — Buy  and 
— Hold  Until  Needed,  Then  Lease — Coal  Land  Owned  By  the 
United  States  and  Leased  for  General  Market  Coal  Land  Held 
By  Private  Owners — Stop  Avoidable  Waste — Prevent  Opening 
of  New  Mines  Until  Needed — Zoning  the  Coal  Area — Objec- 
tions to  Zoning — Industries  Dependent  on  Coal  Outside  of 
Zone — Furnaces  Adapted  to  Outside  Coal — Operators  Lose  Out- 
side Customers — Advantages  of  Zoning — Reduction  in  Freight 
Cost — Protect  One  Zone  from  Surplus  in  Other  Zones — Better 
Car  Supply — Centralized  Selling  and  Distributing  Agencies — 
Advantages  :  Reduced  Selling  Cost — Better  Distribution  of  Or- 
ders— Price  Fixing  in  Zones,  Difficulty— 'Protect  High-Coist 
Mines  and  Still  Not  Give  Low-Cost  Mines  Excessive  Profits — 
Government  Help  to  High-Cost  Mines — Objection  to  Subsidy — 
How  Money  for  Bonus  Will  Be  Raised — Seasonal  Character  of 
Coal  Mining — Hardship  to  Operators — Hardship  to  Mine  Labor 
— Increases  Car  Shortage  in  Winter — How  Partially  Cure  Sea- 
sonal Character — Voluntary  Co-operation  of  Consumers  in 
Storing  in  Summer — Coercion  on  Certain  Other  Consumers — 
Railroads,  Preferred  Industries,  Federal,  State,  and  Municipal 
Concerns  Required  to  Store  in  Summer  Two  Months'  Winter 
Supply  More  Than  at  Present — Reduces  Output  from  Novem- 
ber 1st  to  April  1st  By  Forty  Million  Tons,  Increases  Output 
in  Summer  By  Forty  Million  Tons — Makes  Possible  Reduction 
of  Mine  Labor  Twenty  Per  Cent — Reduce  Exports  to  Lowest 
Possible  Limits — Export  While  there  Is  Need  to  Prevent  Suf- 
fering— Reduce  Canadian  Export  to  Exchange — Foreign  Nations 
Soon  Not  Need  Our  Coal — We  Sell  Our  Best  Coal  and  Buy 
Back  Its  Valuable  Contents — We  Sell  Our  Navy  Coal  and 
Reduce  Our  Navy  to   Second  Class. 

First.     Coal  land   operated   for   Government   use   ex- 
clusively 

The  "Navy"  coal  land  is  now  neither  owned  nor  con- 
trolled by  the  United  States.     To  acquire  this  coal  land 

82 


_45 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    83 


will  require  an  Act  of  Congress,  either  authorizing  the 
Secretary  of  the  Interior  to  acquire  these  lands  in  such 
manner  as  he  finds  best,  or  in  such  way  as  the  Congress 
will  prescribe. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Interior  will  refer  the  matter  to 
the  Federal  Bureau  of  Mining  for  information  upon  which 
to  act.  There  will  be  two  classes  of  owners  to  be  dealt 
with: 

1.  Leaseholders.  A  great  majority  of  going  mines  are 
being  operated  under  lease.  Every  leasehold  will  be  thor- 
oughly examined  by  the  expert  inspectors  to  determine  its 
value  and  whether  it  is  being  operated  in  a  way  to  meet 
the  government  requirements,  and  if  not,  what  change  in 
equipment  and  method  must  be  made  to  start  it  to  mining 
according  to  that  requirement,  and  the  immediate  cost  of 
that  change. 

After  the  examination,  the  government  cannot  retire 
and  refuse  to  take  the  lease  as  an  ordinary  buyer  might. 
The  government  must  have  control  of  all  the  coal. 

The  government  representative  may  proceed  to  do  one 
of  three  things.  1st.  Buy  the  lease  and  equipment,  if  the 
lessee  wants  to  sell  or  is  not  a  proper  person  to  continue 
the  lease.  2nd.  Buy  the  coal  land  and  continue  the  lease 
under  Government  control,  with  exclusive  use  of  the  out- 
put. 3rd.  Lease  the  lease.  That  is,  the  lessee  continues 
to  operate  the  lease,  but  binds  himself  to  operate  under  gov- 
ernment regulation, — the  coal  to  be  exclusively  for  govern- 
ment use  or  government  disposal. 

The  capacity  of  the  mines  now  opened  exceeds  govern- 
ment needs,  or  soon  will,  since  commercial  coal  will  gradu- 
ally cease  to  be  mined.  This  fact  may  necessitate  tempo- 
rary closing  of  Some  mines.  Other  mines  may  be  aban- 
doned because  they  are  not  well  located,  and  the  territory 
may  be  better  mined  from  another  location.  Such  cases 
should  be  dealt  with  justly, — indeed,  generously.  Some  dis- 
appointment to  operators  will  be  caused,  and  some  resent- 
ment. The  vital  importance  to  the  government  is  the 
only  justification  for  some  things  that  will  be-  done.    Hence, 


84  COAL 


the  parties  concerned  should  receive  full  compensation. 
Cases  of  hardship,  however,  will  be  rare. 

2.  Coal  land  not  being  operated  but  reserved.  Navy 
coal  land  not  under  lease  will  be  bought  as  explained  in  a 
previous  chapter,  then  outlined  into  units,  each  of  which 
can  be  best  mined  as  a  single  operation.  For  some  time 
few  or  none  of  these  will  be  needed  for  operation.  When 
the  time  comes  for  offering  a  unit  for  lease,  it  is  let  to 
the  best  bidders.  It  is  not  so  much,  if  at  all,  a  bidding 
in  amount  of  royalty,  but  a  bidding  by  the  essential  offer 
of  experience  and  training,  of  skill  and  character,  and 
financial  strength,  which  will  enable  him  to  conform  to 
the  strict  Government  requirements  of  equipment  and 
method,  which  will  conserve  both  life  and  coal. 

The  coal  is  so  valuable  that,  as  nearly  as  possible,  com- 
plete recovery  should  be  attained.  Economy  in  cost  of 
production,  and  mining  done  with  all  possible  skill  to 
that  end,  is  desired,  but  the  maximum  recovery  is  a  para- 
mount consideration. 

Second.     Coal  land  owned  by  the  United  States  and  leased 
for  Commercial**  Mining 

The  present  method  of  leasing  has  been  already  given. 
The  lessees  should  be  regulated  by  the  Federal  Commis- 
sioner of  Mining,  as  we  have  outlined  that  control  for 
land  in  private  ownership.  Provisions  should  be  inserted 
in  each  lease  securing  complete,  helpful  regulation  by  the 
Bureau  of  Mining.  This  regulation  may  be  made  the 
more  complete  and  helpful  as  the  government  has  now 
a  free  hand,  and  should  be  able  to  embody  all  suggestions 
that  experience   has   taught   us. 

Third.     Coal   land    held    by   private   owners 

Some  of  the  reforms  which  The  Federal  Bureau  of 
Mining  will  introduce,  or  some  ends  toward  which  it  will 
work*  are  as  follows : 

1.  Stop  useless  and  avoidable  waste  in  mining.  The 
inspectors  reports  show  that  certain  mines  are  leaving  coal 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    85 


at  the  top  or  bottom  of  the  vein,  that  pillars  are  undrawn 
without  intention  of  final  recovery. 

If  the  report  shows  that  recovery  of  the  coal  that  is 
being  left  is  absolutely  impossible,  then  nothing  farther 
can  be  done. 

If  the  reports  shows  that  the  coal  can  be  recovered, 
then  it  must  be  recovered. 

If  the  report  shows  that  a  mine  is  to  be  abandoned, 
the  company  must  be  required  first  to  get  a  certificate  from 
the  Commissioner  authorizing  such  abandonment.  Such 
certificate  will  not  be  given  until  inspectors  report  that  all 
recoverable  coal  in  the  mines  and  at  the  outskirts  of  the 
company's  holdings  has  been  taken  out. 

If  the  reports  of  inspectors  show  that  winning  such 
coal  will  increase  the  cost  of  the  entire  output  so  that  it 
cannot  be  sold  at  a  profit  at  the*  price  current  in  that  field, 
then  the  Commissioner  shall  decid  what  help  if  any  shall 
be  given  as  I  outline  under  the  subject  of  price  fixing. 

If  the  report  shows  that  a  lower  vein  is  being  mined 
in  such  way  that  an  upper  valuable  vein  is  being  wrecked, 
the  Commissioner  must  demand  that  steps  be  taken  at 
once  to  so  support  the  roof  by  props,  or  flush  the  lower 
depleted  area,  that  the  upper  vein  be  saved;  or  that  the 
upper  vein  be  worked  first;  or  failing  all  these  the  mine 
be  temporarily  closed  until  means  are  devised  to  save 
valuable  coal. 

These  seem  drastic  measures.  It  seems  hard  to  the 
"every  mine  is  the  owner's  castle"  people  that  the  public 
should  meddle  in  private  business,  in  order  to  save  coal 
for  itself. 

If  it  be  hard  it  is  necessary.  Courts  often  take  the 
management  of  a  man's  estate  from  him  when  it  is  shown 
that  he  is  not  mentally  fit  to  manage  it  and  is  wasting  it 
to  the  damage  of  his  heirs.  After  the  operator  stops  com- 
plaining of  the  unwarranted  interference  on  the  part  of 
the  government,  he  will  congratulate  himself  that  he  was 
saved  from  himself,  when  he  realizes  that  the  saved  vein 
of  coal  is  now  as  valuable  as  the  vein  he  was  first  working. 


86  COAL 


2.  Prevent  opening  of  new  mines  till  needed.  There 
is  no  hardship  against  which  operators  have  so  constantly 
complained  as  against  the  ruinous  competition  and  price 
cutting  that  comes  from  new  mines  whose  product  gluts 
an  overloaded  market.  As  long; as  a  mistaken  public 
opinion  exaggerates  the  profit  in  coal  mining,  some  mis- 
guided man  or  company  will  open  a  new  mine.  As  long 
as  large  acreage  is  offered  at  a  cheap  price,  "competition  in 
coal  mining  will  not  be  comparable  with  competition  in 
other  industries." 

A.s  the  present  capacity  of  the  mines  is  far  greater 
cnan  necessary  to  supply  the  demand,  except  in  extrordi- 
nary  cases,  no  new  mines  will  be  needed  for  years.  This 
restrictive  regulation  will,  of  course,  be  exercised  in  a  prac- 
tical common-sense  way.  Thus,  an  exception  might  be 
made  where  a  company  has  unmined  acreage  that  cannot 
be  mined  from  its  present  shaft.  When  the  present  mine 
is  abandoned,  a  new  one  might  be  allowed  in  which  to  use 
its  unused  machinery. 

Exceptions  might  be  made  where  there  is  a  small  area, 
ab  on  a  hilltop,  or  where  the  coal  is  needed  for  local  use. 
Thi^  should  be  guarded  and  inspected,  to  be  sure  that  this 
temporary  mining  does  not  damage  other  coal.  Much  of 
the  waste  and  damage  to  the  coal  in  the  primitive  mining 
in  the  anthracite  and  some  bitumuinous  fields  came  from 
the  crude  mining  methods  of  the  small  mining  companies 

The  fact  that  a  large  part  of  the  Pocahontas  and 
New  River  coal  will  be  withdrawn  from  commerce  will, 
to  the  extent  of  probably  20,000,000  tons  or  more,  re- 
duce the  competition  in  the  commercial  coal.  But  the 
stoppage  of  waste  in  burning,  and  the  increase  in,  gas  pro- 
ducers and  byproduct  plants  will  enable  a  smaller  coal 
supply  to  do  the  work  now  done  by  the  larger  amount 
of  coal.  It  may  be  that  the  increased  efficiency  of  the 
coal  produced  will  keep  pace  for  years  with  the  increased 
demand  from  increase  of  population.  These  restrictions 
are  not  made  for  the  purpose  of  limiting  the  necessary  use 


- 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    87 


of  coal,  but  that  overproduction  which  provokes  waste,  may 
be  controlled. 

3.  Zoning  The  Coal  Area.  The  proposition  to  zone 
the  coal  industry  is  not  new.  The  advantages  of  some 
kind  of  zoning  are  too  patent  to  escape  the  thought  of 
intelligence  and  judgment.  "Carrying  coals  to  Newcastle" 
is  the  essence  of  folly.  Cross-hauling  is  too  wasteful  and 
costly.  For  A  to  send  coal  to  B,  then  B  to  send  the  same 
kind  of  coal  back  to  A  seems  absurd. 

The  time  to  try  the  experiment  never  came  until  it 
was  forced  upon  us  by  the  exigency  of  war. 

Most  operators,  probably  all  of  them,  without  giving  it 
serious  thought,  declare  that  zoning  during  the  war  was 
worse  than  a  failure.  It  violated  the  rights  of  operators, — 
was  burdensome  and  wrong. 

No  doubt  there  were  numerous  details  in  the  zoning 
during  the  war  that  were  burdensome  and  wrong.  This 
was  unavoidable  in  a  zoning  made  offhand,  with  imperfect 
knowledge,  and  having  many  of  its  features  determined 
by  the  efforts  to  prefer  industries  essential  to  winning  the 
war. 

In  time  of  peace  a  zoning  will  correct  the  mistakes  and 
right  the  wrongs  of  wartime  zoning.  Now  no  industries 
are  preferred :  all  legitimate  industries  are  peace  industries. 
No  zone  boundaries  will  be  drawn  offhand  but  fixed  from 
the  vast  amount  of  information  gained  during  the  war. 

The  boundaries  will  be  flexible  and  gradually  adjusted 
as  experience  justifies  change.  As  time  goes  by  and  con- 
ditions change,  the  limits  may  also  change. 

Objections  That  Are  Made 

(a)  Certain  industries  are  dependent  for  success  on 
coal  outside  of  their  zone.  For  instance,  a  certain  plant  in 
Indiana  cannot  make  the  coke  it  needs  unless  it  can  get 
coal  from  Central  Pennsylvania  to  mix  with  its  local  coal. 
In  such  case  a  small  amount1  of  coal  may  be  allowed  to  be 
imported  from  one  zone  into  another, — at  least  temporarily. 


SS  COAL 


New  methods  and  new  construction  of   coke  ovens  may 
make  it  unnecessary  to  use  any  other  than  local  coal. 

(b)  Certain  plants  have  furnaces  adapted  to  coal  out- 
side of  their  zone  and  cannot  efficiently  burn  local  coal. 

A  certain  common-sense  adjustment  will  be  necessary, 
but  in  a  short  time  such  matters  will  adjust  themselves. 
The  saving  in  cost  of  coal  and  a  sure  supply  may  warrant 
some  expense  in  making  needed  changes,  and  replacements 
will  gradually  solve  the  problem. 

(c)  Operators  who  have  customers  outside  of  their 
zone  may  complain  that  they  have  built)  up  a  trade  outside 
of  their  zone  at  expense  of  time  and  money,  and  now  it 
is  arbitrarily  taken  from  them. 

Here  we  have  two  cross-objections  curing  each  other. 
Operators  in  all  zones  will  have  customers  in  their  zone 
who  are  in  the  market  for  a  new  source  of  supply, — prob- 
ably only  too  glad  that  they  can  get  their  coal  near  at 
home  with  smaller  freight  rate  and  a  more  certain  supply. 
Operators  simply  swap  customers. 

These  objections  will  be  gradually  removed  and  the 
advantages  will  be  found  to  far  outweigh  the  disadvantages. 

Advantages  of  Zoning 

(a)  A  great  reduction  to  the  consumer  in  freight  rate. 
A  great  part  of  the  cost  of  coal  to  the  consumer  is  in  the 
freight  cost.  The  price  of  coal  is  (for  instance,  at  the 
mine  in  the  Pocahontas  field),  say,  $4  per  ton.  The  freight 
from  the  mine  to  Chicago  is  $2.70  per  ton. 

(b)  The  producer  in  one  zone  is  protected  from  the 
surplus  coal  in  another  zone.  If  one  zone  has  a  surplus 
of  coal  by  operating  its  mines  steadily,  it  cannot  send  its 
surplus  into  another  so  as  to  reduce  running-time  in  that 
zone. 

(c)  Better  car  supply.  Cross-hauling  requires  many 
more  cars  than  are  really  needed.  A  car  starts  from  the 
Pittsburgh  field  with  a  load  of  coal  for  Kansas;  it  takes  it 
several  days  to  go  and  return.    All  the  time  consumed  by 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    89 


the  car  in  traveling  from  the  Pittsburgh  zone  to  the  limit 
of  the  proper  Kansas  zone  and  back  is  so  much  'time  lost, 
and  so  many  ton-miles  added  to  the  freight  cost.  This 
wasteful  hauling  reduces  the  car  supply  in  the  Pittsburgh 
zone,  instead  of  keeping  it  in  its  own  zone  and  using  it 
over  and  over  again  in  supplying  local  demand.  The  zon- 
ing in  the  United  States  during  the  war  saved  millions  of 
ton-miles,  which  was  equivalent  to  adding  many  cars  to 
the  car  supply. 

4.  Centralized  selling  or  distributing  agencies.  Two 
results   are   attained   by   centralized   selling   agencies : 

(a)  Reduced  selling  cost.  Every  year  the  cost  of 
mining  has  increased,  and  it  will  continue  to  increase  in 
the  future.  Thinner  and  deeper  veins,  longer  haul  in  the 
mines  as  they  grow  older,  and  greater  labor  cost  will 
cause  greater  cost  of  coal.  Every  available  means  ought 
to  be  employed  to  offset  these  increased  costs.  It  is  a 
great  waste  of  energy  and  money  for  every  mine  or  com- 
pany to  have  all  the  selling  machinery  which  would  be 
sufficient  for  all  the  selling  force  of  the  entire  field.  It 
is  also  a  great  waste  of  the  patience  of  the  buyer  to  have 
to  stand  the  seige  of  salesmen  from  most  of  the  mines  in 
his  district.  The  reason  that  the  Sherman  anti-trust  law 
forbade  such  agency  was  to  prevent  a  combination  of  coal 
companies  to  fix  prices.  "The  more  salesmen  the  better." 
Clearly,  the  greater  the  number  of  salesmen  the  greater  the 
cost  of  the  coal  to  the  consumer.  If  a  buyer  here  and 
there  is  benefited  now,  he  will  pay  for  it  some  time  in  the 
future  and  some  other  buyer  will  pay  for  it  now. 

(b)  Better  distribution  of  orders.  If  possible,  the 
orders  for  coal  in  a  zone  should  be  distributed  so  that 
each  mine  will  get  its  equitable  quota  of  business.  Dis- 
crimination in  car  supply  has  wrecked  many  a  mine.  The 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  and  the  State  Commis- 
sions had  to  take  this  evil  by  the  throat,  and  they  have 
done  much  to  kill  it.  The  theory  of  their  activity  is  that 
every  mine  ought  to  have  its  due  quota  of  opportunity. 


90  COAL 

Cars  without  orders  are  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  If  the 
operator  has_cars  and  no  orders,  and  does  not  operate  his 
mine,  the  idle  cars  are  counted  against  his  quota  of  cars, 
and  when  he  secures  new  orders,  having  used  up  his  quota, 
he  gets  no  cars.  If  he  is  tempted  to  operate  without  orders, 
he  may  send  his  coal  on  an  unwilling  market  and  to  car 
demurrage. 

This  evil  the  distributing  agency  tends  to  remedy.  The 
order  for  coal  comes  to  the  agency.  They  have  the  in- 
formation needed  to  tell  them  what  mines  arey  sold  up  and 
what  mines  have  no  orders.  A  very  important  additional 
function  is  to  give  the  order  to  the  mine  producing  the  kind 
of  coal  asked  for.  The  orders  are  distributed,  also,  as 
much  as  possible,  with  reference  to  the  least  expense  to 
the  consumer. 

Other  things  being  equal,  the  coal  ought  to  go  from 
the  mine  nearest  to  the  consumer,  so  as  to  save  freight  costs 
and  also  increase  car  supply.  If  such  plan  shall  even  in 
part  accomplish  these  purposes,  it  will  promote  economy, 
stability  and  Justice. 

5.  Price  fixing  in  the  various  zones.  Restraining  laws 
passed  by  Congress,  are,  for  the  most  part,  intended  as 
price-fixing  laws :  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  was  passed 
on  the  theory  that  if  certain  combinations  and  understand- 
ings between  operators  are  allowed,  prices  will  be  advanced 
much  beyond  what  the  consumer  ought  to  pay  to  cover 
costs  and  a  fair  profit. 

Such  restraining  laws  are  to  that  extent  price-fixing 
laws.  If  legislation  can  indirectly  control  prices,  why  not 
directly  control  them? 

If  joint  selling  and  distributing  agencies  are  allowed, 
in  order  to  offset  that  grant,  a  restraint  ought  to  be  put 
upon  profiteering  to  the  injury  of  the  public,  and  upon 
privateering  and  piracy,  which  will  as  surely  work  harm 
to  the  public  in  the  end.  If  high  wages  and  high  cost  and 
a  fair  profit  fix  a  maximum  selling  price,  why  should  not 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    91 

high  wages  and  high  cost  and  a  minimum  wage  fix  a  mini- 
mum selling  price  to  stop  piracy  and  privateering? 

Difficulties  Attending  Price  Fixing 

A  just  selling  price  must  include  cost  and  profit.  It  is 
hard  to  determine  cost  in  any  extended  field,  as  every  field 
has  problems  peculiar  to  itself.  This  difficulty  will  be 
partially  obviated  by  zoning.  Conditions  in  a  zone  will 
be  more  nearly  equal  within  its  limited  area.  A  new  diffi- 
culty, or  an  aggravation  of  an  old  one,  is  introduced  by 
the  demand  that,  as  far  as  possible,  every  mine  must  elimi- 
nate waste. 

The  cost  of  recovering  coal  that  is  hard  to  mine  and 
that  the  operator  is  disposed  to  leave  in  the  mine  is  differ- 
ent for  mines  even  side  by  side.  If  the  government  re- 
quires the  operator  to  win  that  coal,  it  ought  to,  as  far 
as  possible,  protect  him  from  loss.  Whether  the  govern- 
ment fixes  prices  or  not,  there  will  be  price-fixing  in  every 
zone,  whether  that  price  be  high  or  low. 

Competition  will  fix  the  price  of  coal  of  a  certain 
quality  within  a  certain  radius,  regardless  of  the  fact  that 
some  within  that  radius  have  high  cost  of  production  and 
others  low  cost.  Cost  of  production  has  in  the  past  been 
largely  equalized  by  the  high  cost  operator  mining  "easy" 
coal  and  leaving  hard-to-win  coal  to  be  lost.  If  the  govern- 
ment demands  the  recovery  of  that  hard-to-win  coal,  one 
of  two  results  will  follow : 

(a)  All  the  coal  mined  in  a  zone  will  be  sold  at  such 
high  price  that  the  coal  mined  in  the  high-cost  mine  will 
be  sold  at  a  sufficient  profit.  This  will  give  the  low-cost 
mine  an  excessive  profit  and  compel  the  public  to  pay  much 
more  for  their  coal  than  is  right. 

(b)  All  the  coal  mined  in  the  zone  will  be  sold  at  such 
low  price  that  only  the  low-cost  coal  will  make  a  profit. 

The  result  will  be  that  all  the  high-cost  mines  will  be 
forced  to  close.  No  business  can  be  carried  on  long  at  a 
loss,  or  even  no  profit.  The  public  does  not  want  the 
mines  to  close  in   such  number  as  to   cause   a   shortage. 


92  COAL 


They  would  rather  pay  a  higher  price  for  their  coal  than 
to  freeze. 

When  the  Fuel  Administration  fixed  the  selling  price 
of  coal  so  low  that  the  thin  vein  mines  in  a  single  con- 
gressional district  in  Pennsylvania,  to  the  number  of  sixty- 
seven,  were  forced  to  close,  the  people  demanded  that 
prices  be  advanced  so  that  they  could  get  coal.  Beside,  this 
would  defeat  the  attempt  to  conserve  the  coal  supply.  If 
mines  are  closed  for  long,  they  will  be  damaged,  probably 
ruined,  and  all  the  coal  lost.  If  they  are  reopened  it  will 
involve  all  the  expense  of  opening  a  new  mine. 

The  government,  then,  appears  to  have  undertaken  to 
do  twq  apparently  irreconcilable  things :  First,— require  all 
the  coal  which  can  be  recovered  to  be  mined;  second, — 
limit  the  selling  'price  so  that  all  the  great  body  of  the 
mines  shall  make  a  reasonable  but  not  excessive  profit. 

The  standard  for  fixing  price  is  cost  plus  reasonable 
profit  in  the  low-cost  or  moderately  low-cost  mines.  It  will 
be  found  that  this  class  will  include  a  large  body  of  the 
mines.  This  class,  while  they  may  fret  somewhat  at  the 
thought  of  any  restraint,  will  very  soon  congratulate  them- 
selves that  they  are  now  selling  in  a  stabilized  market  in 
which  they  have  the  novel  experience  of  a  fair  profit. 

Government  Help  To  The  High-Cost  Mines 

The  operator  must  not  lose  the  high-cost  coal,  but  he 
cannot  recover  to  a  large  extent  at  a  loss. 

One  of  the  items  that  inspectors  are  required  to  report 
is :  "How  much  more  will  it  cost  to  mine  the  hard-to-win 
coal  than  it  does  to  mine  the  other  coal  in  that  mine?" 

This  difference  the  government  is  fairly  bound  to  see 
covered  in  some  way.  It  does  not  follow  that  the  owner 
shall  make  as  large  profit  on  his  entire  output  as  does  the 
owner  who  has  a  low-cost  mine.  His  mine  is  not  so  valu- 
able. The  government  does  not  undertake  to  make  all 
mines  equally  valuable.  For  instance,  one  owner  has  a 
vein  of  six  feet,  two  of  which  he  had  been  leaving  at  the 
top  for  reasons  of  poor  roof,  which  it  would  be  expensive 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    93 


to  prop  if  all  the'  coal  is  taken.  His  competitor  has  a  six- 
feet  vein  with  a  good  roof,  so'  that  all  the  vein  was  mined 
at  one  time. 

The  first  owner  before  was  operating  a  four-foot  vein 
in  competition  with  a  six-foot  vein,  and  making  a  profit. 
His  profit  per  ton  was  not  as  great  as  his  competitor's 
profit.  Now,  if  at  the  demand  of  the  government  and  its 
help,  he  could  market  his  entire  six-feet  at  the  same  profit 
per  ton  as  he  did  his  four-feet  vein,  his  total  profit  will 
be  greater  than  before.  That  seems  more  than  he  ought 
to  demand.  If  he  now  can  mine  his  entire  vein  so  as  to 
make  the  same  profit  as  before  on  four-sixths  of  his  output 
and  a  smaller  profit  on  the  other  two-sixths,  he  is  justly 

Objection  to  a  Subsidy 

A  great  majority  of  the  people  protest  against  paying 
any   bonus   directly   to   anybody. 

We  want  any  bonus  we  pay  to  be  deftly  concealed  in 
a  tariff.  In  the  first  place,  this  is  not  in  a  true  sense  a 
bonus  either  concealed  or  open.  It  is,  in  fact,  not  paying 
a  bonus  to  anyone.  It  is  simply  paying  the  operator  part 
of  his  cost  in  redeeming  our  own  coal,  coal  that  belongs 
to  the  people  and  our  posterity,  coal  that,  to  the  full  extent 
of  its  value,  lengthens  our  industrial  and  commercial  life, 
or  supremacy. 

In  the  second  place,  if  this  coal  is  recovered,  it  is  much 
cheaper  to  pay  the  small  amount  of  the  help  than  to  fix 
the  selling  price  of  all  the  coal  in  the  zone  so  high  that  the 
high-cost  coal  can  be  sold  at  any  profit. 

How  Will  the  Money  Be  Raised  for  the  Help? 

If  this  saving  of  waste  is  in  the  interest  of  all  the 
people,  they  could  be  fairly  charged  with  payment  for  it. 

The  Federal  government  represents  the  people,  but  it 
can  only  pay  what  it  has,  somehow,  collected.  The  gov- 
ernment does  not  collect  a  special  fund  for  each  item  of 
expenditure,  but  it  seems  fair  to  collect  this  special  fund 
from  the  industry  itself. 


94  COAL 


(a)  Collect  from  the  companies  in  each  zone  a  tax  on 
each  ton  of  coal  sold.  The  fact  that  coal  is  sold  through 
central  agencies  will  make  it  easy. 

(b)  Grant  the  coal  companies  an  increase  in  selling 
price  to  cover  that  tax.  The  amount  of  that  tax  when 
spread  over  the  entire  tonnage  will  be  small  per  ton.  It 
will  finally  be  passed  on  to  the  public  in  whose  interest 
it  is  finally  invested. 

6.  Partly  cure  the  seasonal  character  of  the  coal  in- 
dustry. There  is  no  feature  of  the  coal  industry  that  has 
provoked  such  fruitless  discussion  and  that  is  so  much 
lamented  as  that  coal  production  seems  hopelessly  seasonal. 

For  several  months  in  the  year  a  large  part  of  the  mines 
are  practically  idle,  and  for  other  months  can  scarcely 
supply  the  demand.  The  average  condition  of  the  coal 
business  is  fairly  reflected  in  a  statement  made  to  the  late 
coal  commission  concerning  the  coal  business  in  Montana: 

■Normal  business  in  Montana  means  comparatively  steady 
working  time  for  three  months,  three-quarters  time  for  three 
months,  half  time  three  months  and  quarter  time  three  months. 

These  conditions  bring  about  the  following  evil  results : 
(1)   On  the  average,  excessive,  probably  ruinous,  cost 
of  production.     This  fact  is  illustrated  clearly  by  the  ex- 
perience of  operators  in  this  same  Montana  field. 

The  selling  price  of  coal  for  Montana,  fixed  by  the  Fuel 
Administration,  was  fairly  adequate  during  the  year  1918  be- 
cause of  abnormal  conditions,  resulting  in  steady  working  time 
and  creating  a  demand  for  all  grades  of  coal.  During  the  year 
1919  practically  every  operator  in  the  state  has  operated  at  a 
loss,  even  though  the  price  restriction  was  removed  and  selling 
prices  advanced  thirty  to  fifty-five  cents  a  ton  for  lump  coal. 

This  loss  was  caused  by  the  fact  that  in  1919  demand 
fell  off,  and  mines  operated  only  a  few  days  each  week. 

We  may  illustrate  the  seasonal  effect  on  profit  by  a 
not  improbable  case : 

A  mine  has  a  capacity  output  of  one  thousand  tons 
daily.  The  output  can  all  be  sold  at  the  mine  at  $2.50  a 
ton.    The  fixed  charges  per  day,  including  interest,  depre- 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    95 


ciation,  insurance,  salaries,  pumping,  and  clearing  out  falls 
in  the  mine  are  $1000  a  day.  The  fixed  charges  and  added 
operating  charges  when  the  mine  is  running  are  $2000  a 
day.  If  the  mine  is  operated  six  days  in  the  week,  the 
output  of  six  thousand  tons  is  sold  for  $15,000,  cost  of 
production  is  $12,000,  and  the  profit  for  the  week  is  $3000. 

If  the  mine  is  operated  three  days  in  the  week,  the  output 
of  three  thousand  tons  is  sold  for  $7500  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion is  $6000  for  the  three  operating  days,  and  $3000  for 
the  three  idle  days,  or  a  total  cost  of  $9000.  The  loss  for 
the  week  is  therefore  $1500. 

(2)  Injustice  to  mine  labor.  Miners'  leaders,  when 
demanding  increased  wages  for  mine  labor,  am  confronted 
with  mine  payrolls  showing  large  monthly  earnings  of  the 
men. 

They  reply  that  the  mining  industry  is  seasonal ;  that, 
though  many  men  make  good  wages  when  they  can  work 
every  day  in  the  month,  yet,  owing  to  the  large  amount  of 
enforced  idle  time  in  the  year,  especially  in  summer,  their 
yearly  earnings  are  small. 

The  two  factors  that  fix  the  yearly  tonnage  mined  by 
the  average  miner  during  the  year  are:  (1)  the  amount 
of  coal  demanded  by  the  market  during  the  year;  (2)  the 
number  of  miners. 

Unless  one  or  the  other  of  these  factors  is  varied  there 
will,  of  course,  be  no  change  in  the  yearly  output  by  the 
average  miner.  Whether  that  fixed  amount  of  coal  is 
mined  in  about  one  hundred  and  ninety-five  days  or  thirty- 
two  and  one-half  weeks,  as  at  present,  or  in  fifty-two 
weeks,  makes  no  difference  in  the  actual  tonnage  mined  by 
each  man  in  the  year.  The  demand  of  a  thirty-hour  week, 
which  was  recently  made,  could  only  be  rationally  made  on 
the  assumption  that  the  seasonal  character  of  the  coal 
industry  is  entirely  eliminated.  If  the  public  could  be 
persuaded  or  forced  to  buy  as  much  coal  in  June  and  July 
as  in  January  and  December,  and  so  for  all  the  other 
months,  spread  the  output  of  coal  uniformly  over  the 
fifty-two  weeks,  then  the  same  number  of  miners  might 


96  COAL 


mine,  by  working  thirty  hours  a  week  for  fifty- two  weeks, 
the  demanded  output  that  they  now  mine  by  working 
forty-eight  hours  a  week  for  thirty- two  and  one-half  weeks. 

If  the  seasonal  character  of  the  coal  industry  could  be 
changed  so  that  men  might  have  steady  work  if  it  did 
not  increase  the  average  output  per  man,  even  if  pay  per 
ton  were  not  changed,  it  would  benefit  the  miner.  It  would 
increase  his  physical  and  mental  worth.  If  a  man  works 
only,  on  the  average,  a  day  and  a  half  each  week;  some 
weeks  no  work ;  some,  three  or  four  days  a  week  for  three 
months,  he  is  in  danger  of  suffering  physically,  mentally, 
and  perhaps  morally.  When  the  peak  of  the  demand 
comes,  his  enforced  idleness  has  rendered  him  unfit  for 
the  strenuous  work  he  then  has  to  do. 

But  when  the  time  comes  that  the  miners  get  their 
demand  for  a  thirty-hour  week,  they  will  again  couple  with 
it  a  demand  for  a  sixty  per  cent  increase  in  mining  rates. 
That  is,  they  demand  as  much  money  for  a  thirty-hour 
week  as  they  before  received  for  a  forty-eight  hour  week. 
If  all  these  demands  are  granted,  they  are  in  danger  of 
inviting  a  condition  on  which  they  have  not  counted. 

First,  if  the  seasonal  character  of  the  coal  business  is 
not  changed,  the  number  of  miners  will  have  to  be  in- 
creased. At  the  peak  of  the  demand  in  winter  it  takes  all 
the  miners  that  are  now  employed,  working  forty-eight 
hours  in  the  week,  to  mine  the  needed  coal,  and  often  there 
is  a  shortage  of  labor.  It  would  take  sixty  per  cent  more 
men  to  meet  the  demand,  if  they  worked  only  thirty  hours 
a  week  than  it  did  to  meet  the  same  demand  when  they 
worked  forty-eight  hours  a  week.  Mining  would  be  at- 
tractive, large  pay  and  short  hours,  so  the  additional  men 
could  be  readily  obtained.  Once  in  the  ranks  of  the  miners, 
the  men  claim  the  same  right  to  continuous  employment  as 
the  other  miners.  Thus  this  constant  amount  of  yearly 
demand  is  now  distributed  over  a  larger  number  of  men, 
and  the  average  miner  has  less  tonnage  than  before  he  got 
his  sixty  per  cent  increase.  The  increase  in  men  will  just 
balance  the  increase  in  price  per  ton  and  the  miner  will 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    97 

not  be  benefited  but  the  public  will  be  the  grievous  sufferer. 
Second.  The  alternative  condition  that  they  invite  is 
that,  if  the  seasonal  character  of  the  business  is  changed 
so  that  there  is  no  appreciable  peak  of  demand  and  the 
present  number  of  miners  could  supply  the  demand  by 
working  thirty  hours  a  week,  that  other  labor  will  either 
receive  a  thirty-hour  week  or  demand  that  the  number  of 
miners  be  reduced,  so  that  they,  too,  will  have  to  work 
thirty-five  or  forty-two,  or  forty-eight  hours  a  week. 

Increase  in  Yearly  Demand  for  Coal  Will  Not  Help  Labor 

As  long  as  the  present  seasonal  character  of  the  coal 
business  continues,  increase  in  the  amount  of  coal  re- 
quired by  the  market  in  a  year  will  not  increase  the 
tonnage  output  by  each  miner.  The  number  of  men  re- 
quired at  the  time  of  year  when  demand  is  greatest  will 
be  increased  in  the  same  proportion  as  the  increase  in 
demand. 

It  is  a  real  hardship  that  men  who  are  called  in  to  help 
in  time  of  urgent  need,  and  will  be  called  again  when 
urgent  need  arises,  are  cut  off  from  a  chance  to  earn  living- 
wages  when  that  need  passes  and  demand  dwindles  to  a 
minimum. 

(3)  Seasonal  coal  promotes  car  shortage.  In  summer- 
time coal  cars  that  ought  to  be  hauling  storage  coal  are 
idle;  there  is  little  demand  for  coal. 

In  fall,  when  coal  cars  are  in  demand  to  put  in  some 
of  winter's  supply,  engines  are  busy  hauling  wheat,  corn, 
live  stock,  and  other  food  supplies. 

When  winter  comes  in  earnest,  with  little  storage  coal 
in  the  public's  bins,  when  engines  themselves  use  up  large 
coal  supply  for  their  increased  duty,  when  industrial  and 
domestic  demands  are  at  their  height,  when  snow-drifts 
and  storms  are  at  their  cruel  climax,  the  adequate  car 
supply  is  at  its  lowest. 

How  can  the  coal  industry  be  made  an  all-year  industry? 
The  coal  industry  cannot  be  so  changed  that  absolutely 


98  COAL 


the  same  amount  of  coal  will  be  mined  each  month  in  the 
year, — it  is  not  desirable  that  such  result  be  completely 
attained. 

It  is  certain  that  such  change  as  is  desirable  may  be 
attained  by  use  of  two  means : 

First.  Voluntary  co-operation  of  consumers.  Propa- 
ganda shall  make  a  placard,  "Buy  coal  in  summer,"  as 
much  in  evidence  as,  "Buy  early  for  Christmas."  This 
should  be  followed  by  statement  of  a  very  forcible  reason 
for  such  buying,  "Buy  coal  in  summer  and  save  money." 
The  way  in  which  they  save  money  will  be  given  later. 

Second.  Pressure  on  certain  buyers  even  to  point  of 
coercion. 

Railroads  required  to  store  three  months'  supply  by 
November  first.  Railroads,  being  under  Federal  regula- 
tion, though  now  returned  to  their  owners,  may  be  required 
by  the  first  of  November  gradually  to  accumulate  in  stor- 
age during  the  summer  months  a  winter's  supply  for  three 
months. 

During  the  next  five  months, — that  is,  from  November 
first  to  April  first, — the  ygradually  reduce  their  supply,  so 
that  by  April  first  their  supply  is  reduced  to  one  month's 
needs.  In  order  to  accomplish  this  result  in  the  five 
months,  they  buy  and  take  out  of  the  genera*  market  only 
three  months'  supply  for  themselves. 

This  plan  accomplishes  three  very  important  results: 

(1)  The  railroads  buy  during  the  summer  months  two 
months'  supply  more  than  they  ordinarily  do. 

(2)  They  buy  two  months'  supply  less  in  the  winter 
than  they  ordinarily  do  and  thus  reduce  by  that  much  the 
required  winter  output. 

(3)  Release  the  cars  that  now  are  needed  to  haul  that 
two  months'  coal  supply  in  winter,  for  use  to  haul  other 
coal  and  freight. 

(b)  Certain  other  corporations  must  observe  the  same 
rule.  I  have  suggested  that  certain  steel  companies  be 
allowed  cross-haul  from  West  Virginia  coal  that  otherwise 
would  be  reserved  as  "Navy"  coal.     Also  it  is  propose* 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL    99 


to  assist  certain  companies  that  will  build  byproduct  plants, 
by  granting  them  a  loan.  These  and  similar  corporations 
ihould  be  required  to  store  winter  coal  in  the  same  way 
that  railroads  store  their  supply. 

(c)  State  and  municipal  institutions,  public  utilities, 
street  railways,  interurbari  railroads,  electric  light  and  heat 
companies,  water  companies,  schools,  hospitals,  State  and 
county  institutions,  should  be  urged  and,  as  far  as  prac- 
ticable, required  to  observe  such  storage  regulations  as 
those  before  outlined.  No  hard-and-fast  rule  can  be  ap- 
plied to  every  such  consumer, — lack  of  storage-room  may 
restrict  the  amount  of  storage.  But  even  a  partial  con- 
formity will  be  worth  while. 

It  seems  probable  that,  railroads,  preferred  industries, 
and  public  institutions,  together  with  domestic  and  private 
users  who  can  be  induced  to  store  in  summer,  will  make 
one-half  of  the  consumers  in  the  quantity  of  coal  used. 
If  these  store  in  the  summer  eight  weeks'  winter  require- 
ments more  than  their  summer  demands,  that  will  add 
forty  million  tons  to  the  summer  output,  and  take  that 
much  out  of  the  winter  output. 

During  the  five  months,  or  twenty-one  weeks,  of  No- 
vember, December,  January,  February,  and  March  the 
average  weekly  requirement  is  at  present  thirteen  million 
tons,  or  a  total  of  two  hundred  and  seventy-three  million 
tons.  During  the  three  months  of  April,  September,  and 
October  the  average  weekly  requirement  is  ten  million 
tons,  or  a  total  of  one  hundred  and  thirtv  million  tons. 
During  the  summer  months  of  May,  June,  Julv  and  August 
the  average  weekly  requirement  now  is  about  half  as  much 
as  in  winter,  or  six  million,  five  hundred  thousand  tons, 
or  a  total  for  eighteen  weeks  of  one  hundred  and  seventeen 
million  tons. 

Now,  taking  forty  million  tons  from  the  ordinary  re- 
quirement of  two  hundred  and  seventy-three  million  in 
the  winter,  leaves  two  hundred  and  thirty-three  million  to 
be  put  out  in  twenty-one  weeks,  or  say,  eleven  million  tons 
a  week. 


100  COAL 


The  weekly  requirement  for  April,  September,  and  Oc- 
tober remains  ten  millions. 

Adding  forty  million  tons  to  the  ordinary  output  in  the 
four  summer  months,  makes  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven 
million  tons  output  in  eighteen  weeks, — or  say,  eight  mil- 
lion, seven  hundred  thousand  tons  each  week. 

If  the  same  number  of  men  work  as  now,  in  the  five 
winter  months  they  must  work  eleven- tenths  of  thirty 
hours,  or  thirty-three  hours  each  week.  In  the  months  of 
April,  September,  and  October  they  must  work  ten-tenths 
of  the  basic  time,  or  thirty  hours.  In  the  summer  months 
of  May,  June,  July,  and  August  they  must  work,  say  nine- 
tenths  of  thirty  hours,  or  twenty-seven  hours  a  week. 

The  conclusions  are  based  on  the  assumption  that  the 
miners  will  work  a  definite  number  of  hours  each  week. 
Of  course,  that  cannot  be  fully  realized.  Car  shortage,  fluct- 
uating demand,  storms,  snows,  floods,  and  holidays  make 
an  absolute  constancy  impossible.  But  these  results  repre- 
sent the  fair  average  conditions. 

The  requirement  of  thirty -three  hours  a  week  in  wintter 
and  thirty  hours  in  April,  September,  and  October  may 
be  met  by  five  days  of  seven  hours  each  week  on  the 
average. 

The  requirement  of  twenty-seven  hours  a  week  in  the 
summer  may  be  met  by  four  days  of  seven  hours.  This 
requirement  of  four  days  of  seven  hours  in  the  summer  is 
a  vast  improvement  on  the  present  experience  of  fifteen 
or  sixteen  hours  a  week.  It  is  not  only  an  improvement 
but  it  may  be  ideal.  It  is  the  vacation  time  for  mine 
workers, — a  vacation  while  still  earning. 

Progressive  companies  are  building  their  company 
houses  so  that  each  family  can  have  a  garden, — or  a  tract 
of  land  is  set  aside  so  that  each  family  can  cultivate  a  part. 
If  the  industry  is  made  more  stable,  if  the  men  become 
more  contented  they  will  more  and  more  buy  their  own 
homes  and  have  their  own  garden  and  chickens.  This 
vacation  time,  on  the  average  of  two  days  in  the  week, 
gives   the   miners    time   and   incentive   to    cultivate    their 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  '101 


gardens  and  thus  reduce  the  actual  outlay  of  their  money 
for  vegetables.  Also,  these  four  months  are  the  time 
in  the  year  when  farm  labor  is  most  in  demand.  The 
days  spent  in  a  corn-field  or  harvest-field  bring  many 
a  dollar  to  add  to  the  yearly  income. 

As  was  before  said,  the  curing  the  seasonal  character 
of  coal  mining  will  not  give  each  worker  a  greater  yearly 
wage  unless  demand  is  increased,  or  the  number  of  men 
is  decreased.  Demand  does  not  promise  to  be  much  greater 
in  the  near  future.  If  the  miner  is  not  satisfied  with  his 
yearly  wage,  supplemented  as  above  outlined,  he  ought  to 
seek  some  other  employment.  If  the  seasonal  character 
of  mining  is  cured,  eighty  per  cent  of  the  present  men  can 
do  the  work  that  is  needed.  Thus,  if  the  number  of  men 
is  eighty  per  cent  of  the  present  workers,  they  would  only 
have  to  work  forty-two  hours  a  week  in  winter;  thirty- 
eight  hours  in  April,  September,  and  October,  and  thirty- 
five  hours  in  May,  June,  July,  and  August.  These  num- 
bers of  hours  do  not  seem  excessive. 

Cheaper  Freight  Rates  in  Summer 

In  order  to  make  an  incentive  to  consumers  to  store 
coal  in  summer,  it  has  been  proposed  that  railroad  freight 
rate  be  thirty  cents  a  ton  less  in  summer  than  in  winter. 
Operators  also  might  make  a  small  reduction  in  coal  price, 
or  rather  the  price  fixed  for  them  may  be  less  by  a  small 
amount  per  ton  in  summer  than  in  winter.  It  does,  in 
fact,  not  cost  the  operator  less  in  summer  but  rather  more ; 
however,  the  more  he  can  increase  his  summer  output  the 
more  it  helps  to  reduce  his  loss.  He  ought  to  have  a 
larger  profit  in  winter  to  compensate  for  the  small  profit 
or  loss  during  the  time  of  small  output  in  summer. 

7.  Reduce  Our  Export  Of  Coal  To  The  Lowest  Pos- 
sible Limit 

The  only  coal  that  we  can  export  is  our  very  best  coal. 
For  a  short  time,  a  considerable  export  will  be  necessary 
because  of  the  need  in  Europe.  We  must  help  to  supply 
what  is  needed  to  prevent  suffering.     For  a  time  we  will 


102  ":-  COAL 


export  coal  to  Canada.  That  is  where  our  largest  export 
has  gone  in  the  past.  Our  export  to  Canada  will  gradually 
become  a  matter  of  exchange.  Our  coal  will  go  to  a  con- 
tiguous coalless  region  of  Canada,  and  Canadian  coal  will 
come  to  a  contiguous  coalless  region  of  the  United  States. 

The  pressing  present  need  for  our  coal  in  Europe  is  to 
a  degree  a  temporary  need.  Every  European  nation  will 
grow  increasingly  independent  of  us.  Germany  can  more 
than  supply  its  own  needs,  even  while  giving  to  France 
what  she  owes  for  destroying  France's  mines.  France,  her 
northern  mines  restored,  with  the  added  supply  from 
Lorraine,  can  more  nearly  meet  her  own  requirements  than 
she  could  before  the  war.  England,  in  addition  to  fur- 
nishing coal  for  her  own  use,  will  again  supply  Italy, 
France,  Spain,  and  South  America.  The  great  coal  fields 
of  Russia,  which  were  commencing  to  produce  large  output 
before  the  war,  have  great  undeveloped  areas.  The  "white 
coal"  of  Italy,  Spain,  and  other  countries  is  coming  more 
and  more  into  prominence.  Our  export  to  Europe  before 
the  war  was  almost  negligible. 

I  know  it  is  rank  heresy  to  advocate  a  restriction  of 
the  export  of  our  coal.  A  large  export  is  the  panacea  for 
all  our  coal  ills.  One  distinguished  enthusiast  predicts  an 
annual  export  of  a  hundred  million  tons,  and  glories  in 
the  prospect.  However,  aside  from  present  humanitarian 
ones,  every  argument  for  a  large  export  of  coal  is  fallacious  : 

(1)  We  have  large  overproduction  of  coal,  therefore 
we  must  have  large  export  to  absorb  it.  This  statement 
ought  to  be  put  the  other  way  round.  We  must  not  and 
will  not  have  overproduction,  therefore  we  must  not  and 
cannot  export  coal. 

(2)  We  can  sell  coal  for  export  at  a  better  price  than 
we  can  sell  it  at  home.  It  is  small  wonder  that  our  export 
coal  sells  at  a  higher  price  than  most  of  our  coal  sold  at 
home.  The  coal  we  export  is  the  very  best  we  have,  "more 
valuable  than  our  anthracite,  its  exhaustion  will  be  a 
calamity."  The  operator  who  thinks  he  is  selling  his  coal 
at  its  full  value  is  mistaken.    If  he  continues  to  mine  coal 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  103 


for  a  few  years,  and  looks  back  upon  what  he  is  now 
doing,  he  will  see  it  in  its  true  light.  He  sent  his  best 
raw  coal  across  the  ocean,  giving  enormous  profit  to  the 
foreign  ships  that  carried  it,  and  saw  the  drugs,  dyes,  and 
medicines  that  were  made  from  poorer  coal  sent  back  to 
us  by  the  millions  of  dollars  worth.  It  is  a  strange  craze 
to  sell  raw  coal  and  import  its  valuable  and  costly  constitu- 
ents, and  then  condemn  the  policy  of  exporting  our  wool 
and  bringing  back  the  expensive  fabrics  we  ought  to  make 
at  home. 

As  a  nation  we  have  interest  in  the  preservation  and 
developments  of  our  natural  resources. 

We  are  interested  in  export  of  coal  and  its  restriction 
from  its  economic  aspect.  But  we  are  vitally  interested 
to  stop  export  of  our  only  "Navy"  coal.  Most  of  the  coal 
now  being  sent  abroad  is  from  our  semi-bituminous  coal. 
To'  export,  or  use, — for  any  other  than  government  use, — 
our  Pocahontas  coal  is  what  would  be  treason  if  done 
consciously  with  intent  to  do  what  it  in  fact  will  do, 
weaken  our  national  defense,  by  making  our  future  navy 
a  second-class  navy. 


CHAPTER   XII 

METHODS    OF    ENFORCING    THESE    CONTROLS 

By  Amicable  Co-operation  of  States,  Operators,  Railroads 
and  the  Public — By  Pressure  Upon  Certain  Classes  That  Re- 
fuse— Railroads  Must  Not  Extend  Line  or  Put  in  Switch  With- 
out Certificate — Railroads  Must  Embargo  Outside  of  Fixed 
Zones — Price-Fixing  Agreed  Upon  in  Compensation  for  Selling 
and  Distributing  Agencies — Objections  to  Maximum  Price-Fix- 
ing By  Operators — Objections  to  Minimum  Price  By  Consumers. 

1.  By  amicable  co-operation  of  States,  operators, 
railroads,  and  the  public.  New  ways  of  doing  things 
take  time,  tact,  and  patience  for  their  introduction. 
Some  of  these  forms  of  control  have  been  suggested 
now  and  again  as  something  about  which  we  may 
dream  but  for  which  we  may  not  hope.  Some  will 
meet  with  denunciation,  but  in  time  this  control  will 
be  accepted  with  enthusiasm. 

2.  By  pressure  exerted  upon  those  who  refuse  to 
co-operate.  Much  of  the  machinery  for  enforcing  them 
is  already  constructed.  Congress  is  clothed  with  ample 
power  to  enact  any  additional  legislation  that  may  be 
needed. 

Conserving  the  coal  supply  is  providing  for  the  gen- 
eral welfare  of  the  United  States,  "it  is  providing  for 
the  national  defense."  Let  us  examine  these  controls 
to  see  what  present  laws  might  warrant. 

(a)     No  New  Mine  to  Be  Opened  Without  Certificate 

This  may  be  enforced,  if  necessary,  by  Federal  con- 
trol of  railroad  extensions.  No  new  mine  can  do  much 
to  inflate  the  commercial  coal  supply,  without  railroad 
connection.  The  new  railroad  bill  has  the  following 
restrictions  on   new  railroad  connections : 

104 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  105 


Xo  carrier  by  railroad,  subject  to  this  act,  shall  undertake 
the  extension  of  its  line  of  railroad,  or  the  construction  of  a 
new  line  of  railroad  or  shall  acquire  or  operate  any  line  of 
railroad  or  extension  thereof  or  shall  engage  in  transportation 
under  this  act,  over  or  by  means  of  such  addition  or  extended 
line  of  railroad  unless  and  until  there  shall  first  have  been 
obtained  a  certificate  from  the  commission  that  the  present 
and  future  public  convenience  and  necessity  requires  or  will 
require  the  construction  and  operation  of  such  additional  or 
extended  line  of  railroad  or  the  operation  thereof. 

This  seems  to  inhibit  the  construction  of  a  spur  or 
switch,  or  the  operation  of  any  such  construction  that 
the  coal  company  may  make  without  a  certificate. 

(b)     Requiring  a  Certificate  Before  a  Mine   Can  Be 
Abandoned 

A  railroad  cannot  now  abandon  any  part  of  its  line 
without  a  certificate. 

No  railroad  shall  abandon  all  or  any  part  of  its  line  of 
railroad  or  operation  thereof  unless  and  until  there  shall  first 
have  been  obtained  from  the  commission  a  certificate  that 
the  present  and  future  convenience  and  necessity  of  the  public 
may  permit  such  abandonment. 

A  railroad  cannot  of  its  own  motion  destroy  a  mine 
or  other  industry  by  abandoning  a  spur  or  switch  which 
now  serves  it.  The  government  protects  the  mine,  the 
mine  is  bound  to  reciprocally  observe  the  government 
restriction  on  its  own  abandonment.  If  a  mining  com- 
pany wants  to  abandon  a  mine,  it  is  because  conditions 
are  such  that  it  cannot  be  operated  at  a  profit,  or  that 
it  is  worked  out.  If  the  Federal  commission  refuses  a 
certificate,  it  must  be  because  the  mine  has  recoverable 
coal  that  is  not  yet  mined.  It  is  not  likely  that  the 
operator  will  want  to  abandon  his  mine  when  shown 
the  new  way  in  which  it  is  proposed  to  help  him  win 
all  the  coal,    A  min^owner  who  would  attempt  to  evade 


106  COAL 

this  requirement  would  never  be  granted  a  permit  to 
open  a  new  mine. 

(c)     Requiring  the  Zoning  of  the  Mining  Fields 

Embargo  by  railroads  can  be  enforced,  if  necessary. 
Railroads  have  always  claimed  and  exercised  the  right 
to  embargo  freight  for  cause,  and  sometimes  without 
sufficient  cause.  Railroads  may  now  be  required  to 
confine  their  coal  freight  within  the  zone  in  which  it 
originates  and  embargo  all  coal  from  that  zone  with 
reference  to  any  terminus  outside  its  limits.  Rail- 
roads and  coal  men  will  soon  find  that  the  advantages 
of  such  zoning  far  outweigh  its  disadvantages.  The 
railroads  will  not  have  their  cars  scattered  over  every 
other  railroad,  used  by  it  till  it  sees  fit  to  return  them. 
Operators  will  have  a  better  car  supply  and  better 
profits.  Only  a  certain  price  can  be  passed  on  to  the 
consumer,  the  less  of  that  which  must  be  charged 
against  freight  the  more  there  is  left  for  operator  and 
labor. 

(d)     Allow  and  Encourage  Selling  Agencies 

(1)  Congress  which  enacted  the  Sherman  Anti- 
Trust  Law,  a  law  that  aimed  to  correct  certain  abuses 
and  that,  while  itj  did  much  good  in  the  past,  has  been 
so  construed  as  to  work  much  harm, — may  modify  it 
by  providing  for  such  agencies  and  repealing  all  laws 
inconsistent  therewith. 

(2)  The  Supreme  Court  has  practically  construed 
out  of  the  Sherman  Law  any  power  to  prevent  reason- 
able selling  agencies.  In  the  Northern  Securities  case 
they  held  that  it  must  be  construed  "according  to  the 
rule  of  reason."  Strange  that  a  court  decision  should 
be  necessary  to  introduce  common  sense  in  construing 
a  law. 

In  the  United  States  Steel  case  the  court  held  that 
restraint  of  trade,  or  seeming  monopoly,  must  be  shown 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  107 


"to  be  injurious  to  the  public  interest"  before  it  will 
be  crushed. 

Under  these  decisions  selling  agencies  ought  to  be 
safe.  Applying  the  "rule  of  reason,"  selling  agencies 
are  not  "injurious  to  the  public  interest"  but  greatly 
promotive  of  the  public  interest. 

They  promote  conservation  in  mining,  by  limiting 
ruinous  competition  that  tends  to  wasteful  methods  of 
operating;  they  encourage  better  preparation  of  the 
coal,  by  docking  poorly  prepared  coal ;  they  promote 
more  uniform  operation  of  mines  and  thus  help  both 
operators  and  labor;  they  ensure  better  prices  to  the 
consumer,  by  reducing  selling  cost ;  they  reduce  freight 
charges  by  sending  coal  from  the  mine  nearest  to  the 
buyer ;  they  give  better  service  to  the  buyer,  for  now 
coal  is  distributed  scientifically  and  not  helter-skelter, 
since  the  entire  field  is  mapped  out  and  its  wants 
studied. 

(e)     Fixing  Maximum  and  Minimum  Selling  Price 

(1)  Many  operators  may  object  to  a  selling  price 
in  the  light  of  their  experience  with  the  Fuel  Adminis- 
tration ;  their  mines  may  have  been  closed,  or  they  may 
have  suffered  loss  because  of  the  low  price  fixed  for 
their  selling  price.  Any  such  price-fixing,  which  either 
caused  loss  or  did  not,  on  the  contrary,  allow  a  profit, 
was  in  direct  violation  of  the  very  law  under  which 
the  Fuel  Administration  was  acting.  The  Lever  Law 
required  that  prices  be  fixed  so  as  to  cover  cost  of 
production,  depreciation,  depletion,  and  a  fair  profit. 
Toward  this  result  the  Fuel  Administration  constantly 
strove.  As  data  were  collected  and  wrongs  righted, 
operators  became  more  and  more  reconciled,  and  deep 
down  in  their  hearts  they  felt  that  if  the  Lever  Law 
were  executed  in  its  real  spirit  they  would  have  had 
the  time  of  their  life. 

(2)  Consumers  may  object  to  a  minimum  selling  price. 
They  can  see  that  Federal  fixing  of  a  maximum  price  is 


108  COAL 


intended  for  their  protection.  Yet  some  of  them  had 
an,  object  lesson  on  the  fact  that  prices  may  be  fixed 
too  low  when  they  saw;  the  mines  on  which  they  de- 
pended for  coal  being  closed  because  they  could  only 
operate  at  a  loss  and  sell  at  the  low  price  fixed  for 
their  coal. 

A  too  low  selling  price  may  be  more  damaging  to 
the  public  than  a  too  high  selling  price.  Thus,  if  a 
strong  company  sells  temporarily  at  a  price  less  than 
cost  of  production,  it  may  have  either  of  two  effects : 
first,  it  may  freeze  out  all  weak  competitors  and  when 
they  are  out  of  the  market  the  strong  company  raises 
prices  abnormally;  second,  the  competing  companies 
may  meet  the  low  prices  by  mining  "easy"  coal,  and 
thus  defeat  the  effort  at  conservation  of  the  consumers' 
future  supply  of  coal. 

(3)  Political  economists  may  object.  They  say 
"relative  supply  and  demand  must  fix  prices."  It  is 
strange  that  this  dictum  of  the  political  economists 
should  go  unchallenged  when  used  in  the  sense  in  which 
they  use  it.  In  a  commodity  such  as  coal,  scarcity  is 
not  necessarily  an  excuse  for  high  price.  We  are  speak- 
ing now  of  what  ought  to  control  prices.  Cost  of  pro- 
duction, depreciation,  depletion,  and  a  fair  profit  con- 
stitute the  only  true  moral  and  just  basis  for  selling 
price.  When  Joseph  and  Pharaoh,  acting  wisely  on 
inside  information,  gathered  every  year  a  portion  of 
the  people's  corn  and  stored  it  against  the  lean  years 
of  famine,  they  were  entitled  to  plenty  of  cornmeal 
and  a  good  salary.  But  when  they  in  times  of  scarcity 
sold  the  people  their  own  corn,  held  in  trust  for  them, 
— first  for  all  their  money  then  their  land,  then  for 
themselves, — Joseph  and  Pharaoh  were  the  greatest 
profiteers  in  all  history.  Radium  is  scarce  and  dear, 
but  not  properly  dear  because  it  is  scarce.  Near  a 
town  in  Western  Pennsylvania  is  a  plant  devoted  to 
the  production  of  radium.  A  neighbor  expressed  the 
real  basis   for  its   dearness  when   he   said,   "That  is  the 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  109 


strangest  factory  I  ever  saw:  tons  and  tons  of  ma- 
terial brought  here  in  trains  and  taken  to  the  mill,  and 
nothing  coming  out."  These  tons  of  material  were 
hewed  out  from  almost  inaccessible  regions  in  the  Far 
West,  hauled  thousands  of  miles,  and  the  output  of  all 
this  labor  and  cost  is  carried  out  in  a  little  tube.  If 
we  count  cost  of  radium  in  money  spent,  labor  of  brawn 
and  brain,  it  oughf  to  be  dear, — but  not  simply  because 
it  is  scarce. 

Scarcity  of  coal  and  a  small  output  establish  a  legiti- 
late  basis  for  greater  selling  price  than  if  the  output 
i»  large,  but  not  because  it  is  scarce  primarily  but 
because  it  costs  more  to  produce  it.  Overhead  charges, 
depreciation,  and  fixed  charges  are  greater  per  ton 
when  spread  over  a  small  output  than  over  a  large 
output. 

(/)     Maximum  Price  Fixing  is  Taken  in  Exchange  for 
the  Right  to  Establish  Selling  Agencies 

The  objection  to  selling  agencies  has  been  that  the 
power  to  charge  exhorbitant  prices  is  thereby  put  into 
the  hands  of  operators.  This  objection  is  removed  if 
prices  are  fixed  by  other  than  the  combining  operators. 

It  ought  to  be  repeated,  however,  that  prices  should 
be  liberal  enough  to  give  a  profit  commensurate  with 
the  great  risk  and  increasing  difficulties  in  mining. 
Consumers  have  been  used  to  such  low  prices  that  they 
are  apt  to  think  such  conditions  will  last  forever.  But 
when  they  are  fully  informed,  they  will  be  willing  to 
bear  the  addition  of  a  cent  or  two  a  bushel,  knowing 
that  the  price  is  fixed  by  a  just  and  competent  com- 
mission. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


LABOR  AND  WAGES 


Causes  of  Unrest  All  End  in  Demand  for  More  Wages- 
Does  Labor  Give  Coal  All  Its  Value— Coal  Land  and  Equip- 
ment Crystallized  Labor — Large  Outlay  Favorable  to  Labor — 
Standard  of  Mine  Wages— Methods  of  Settling  Labor  Condi- 
tions and  Wages — "Mining  Board  of  Labor  Adjustment"  Fix 
Conditions  Not  Wages— "Mining  Labor  Board"  Adjust  Wages- 
Public  Is  Made  Arbiter  After  Being  Fully  Informed — Col- 
lective Bargaining— Bargaining  By  Union  Officials  and  Opera- 
tors— Good  if  Union  Is  Incorporated,  Becomes  Legally  Re- 
sponsible, and  Can  Enforce  Its  Contract — At  Present  of  Little 
Binding  Force — Ideal  Collective   Bargaining. 

One  of  the  most  difficult  subjects  connected  with  coal 
mining-  is  the  adjustment  of  wages  and  other  labor 
conditions. 

Many  of  the  conditions  affecting  the  welfare  of 
mine  labor  are  regulated  by  law,  such  as  ventilation, 
use  of  lamps  in  gaseous  mines,  permissible  explosives, 
and  manway  for  escapes  in  case  of  accident.  General 
laws  fixing  mine  wages  have  not  yet  been  passed,  but 
laws  requiring  companies  to  pay  shot  firers,  require 
them  to  pay  for  all  the  coal  mined,  including  slack  coal 
are  in  force. 

The  Constitution  of  Ohio  gives  the  Legislature  power 
to  pass  a  law  fixing  minimum  wages. 

Miners  have  been  in  a  continual  state  of  unrest. 
Strikes  large  or  small  are  always  going  on  in  some 
part  of  the  field,  and  discontent  and  agitation  for  strike 
in  many  others.  Labor  agitators  and  politicians  thrive 
on  strikes  and  discontent,  but  operators  and  miners  do 
not. 

Every  strike  renders  operators  less  able  to  pay  good 
wages,  and  involves  a  direct  loss  to  miners,  and  scarcely 
ever  a   compensating  indirect   benefit.     Direct   and  in- 

110 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  111 


direct  loss  to  the  public  has  been  great  beyond  computation. 

The  public  is  generally  very  sympathetic  with  labor. 
But  when  it  sees  labor  careless  of  public  comfort  and 
interest,  it  changes  sympathy  to  resentment.  It  is 
hard  to  keep  a  warm  heart  in  a  freezing  body. 

The  causes  of  this  unrest  are  as  varied  as  the  char- 
acter and  conditions  of  the  men.  Foreigners  are  not 
getting  what  they  expected  fi*om  the  glowing  accounts 
they  got  at  home ;  young  men  with  no  home  ties,  no 
interest  in  the  company,  in  each  other,  or  in  the  com- 
munity, want  amusement ;  men  who  do  not  read  don't 
know  what  to  do  with  their  idle  time.  This  is  the  soil 
from  which  grow  strikes.  The  union  official,  the  walk- 
ing delegate,  the  everlasting  agitator, — these  can  weave 
all  these  causes  into  one  proposition :  "What  you  want 
is  more  wages." 

Whatever  the  real  end  that  the  officials  have  in  mind, 
the  ostensible  end  put  forward  is  more  wages.  An 
appeal   for   more   wages   is   one   in   which   all   can  join. 

In  a  company  composed  of  the  radical,  the  gullible, 
the  ignorant,  the  intelligent,  and  the  fair  minded,  it  is 
not  much  wonder  that  there  is  a  great  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  how  much  more  wages  they  must  re- 
ceive. 

They  may  start  together  by  quoting  the  selling  price 
of  a  ton  of  coal  and  the  wage  paid  to  the  miner  for 
digging  it.  If  the  selling  price  is  $3  and  the  mining 
price  is  $1.10,  what  has  become  of  the  difference,  and 
what  should  be  done  with  it?  The  most  pronounced 
radical  says  it  should  be  divided  between  the  miner 
and  the  other  labor  employed  in  producing  it.  If  he 
is  told  that  it  must  cover  various  things  beside  labor, 
such  as  supplies  and  a  proper  return  for  capital  in- 
vested, he  replies :  "There  is  no  such  thing  as  capital 
upon  which  a  return  is  due.  Labor  gives  coal  all  the 
value  it  has." 

This  dictum  might  be  accepted  as  a. not  bad  stand- 
ard of  value,     But  the  value  which  any  object  has  to 


112  COAL 


the  man  who  claims  to  own  it  does  not  necessarily 
tuine   from  his  own  labor  upon  that  particular  object. 

Labor  as  a  thing  of  value  can  be  exchanged  for 
other  labor.  We  make  that  exchange  convenient  by- 
means  of  some  medium, — such  as  money.  The  miner 
when  he  is  working  may  truly  say:  "I  am  just  coining 
money."  When  he  exchanges  that  money  for  a  house, 
the  house  is  his  crystallized  labor.  He  has  exchanged 
his  mine  labor  for  the  labor  of  the  carpenter  and 
mason.  If  such  a  man  gets  that  far  along,  he  may  be 
able  to  see  that,  the  coal  land,  the  tipple,  engines,  cars, 
shafts,  rails,  boilers,  fans,  mules,  and  motors  are  just 
as  much  labor  as  the  shoes  on  his  feet  and  his  home. 
Hundreds  of  people  have  bought  bonds  and  stock  of  the 
company  to  furnish  the  money  to  buy  these  equipments, 
who  worked  for  the  money,  or  their  fathers  and  moth- 
ers did.  Every  tube  in  the  boilers,  every  nail  in  the 
tipple,  was  worked  for  by  someone. 

If  these  equipments  are  labor,  they  ought  to  bring 
some  return  for  their  use  and  destruction ;  every  day 
destroys  a  part  of  this  accumulated  labor  that  was 
worked  for  by  someone,  until  finally  it  has  all  been 
destroyed. 

It  is  no  more  fair  to  take  this  labor  without  pay 
than  it  would  have  been  to  take  the  labor  for  which 
it  was  exchanged  without  pay,  or  to  take  the  miners' 
labor  without  pay. 

There  is  a  class  of  "reformers"  who  contend  that  it 
is  wrong  to  pay  any  interest  or  dividend  even  if  capital 
is  accumulated  labor ;  they  say  that  it  is  enough  that 
it  be  kept  intact  and  returned  to  the  owner.  If  this 
were  true  it  would  not  affect  the  present  case. 

Interest  and  dividends  paid  on  stock  and  bonds 
(when  paid  at  all  as  a  majority  of  the  coal  companies 
are  never  able  to  pay  any  dividends)  in  the  mining 
industry  are  simply  paying  back  the  principal  in  in- 
stallments. The  .equipment  for  which  the  principal  was 
paid  is  soon  worn  out  and  new  equipment  has  to  be 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  1 13 

bought.  When  the  coal  is  exhausted  there  is  nothing 
left  to  return  to  anybody. 

Mining  is  different  from  other  industries  in  that 
every  year  the  principal  grows  less  and  finally  entirely 
disappears. 

A  large  coal  holding  by  the  company  is  favorable 
to  the  miner.  This  is  a  very  large  item  which  must 
be  charged  to  cost  and  one  which  is  very  little  consid- 
ered in  wage  and  cost  discussion. 

If  labor  is  to  be  stabilized,  labor  and  capital  har- 
monized, so  that  the  industrious  thrifty  worker  may 
settle  down  in  one  place  to  spend  his  life  there,  own 
his  home,  identify  himself  with  the  community,  and 
take  his  proper  part  in  civic  affairs  and  accumulate  a 
competency,  the  company  must  spend  a  large  amount 
of  money  for  coal  lands  and  equipment.  It  must  have 
enough  coal  land  to  last  for  forty,  fifty,  or  a  hundred 
years.  This  land  may  cost  from  $300  to  $3000  an  acre, 
and  from  fifteen  thousand  to  twenty-five  thousand 
acres  must  be  bought  as  well  as  a  considerable  sur- 
face area.  Properly  to  develop  such  land  only  the  best 
equipment  that  money  will  buy  will  be  installed.  Con- 
crete shaft-lining,  haulage-ways  are  made ;  cars,  tipple, 
engines,  and  all  the  varied  equipment  must  be  of  the 
most  modern.  The  cost  of  carrying  this  expense,  re- 
newals, new  devices,  taxes,  selling  costs,  workmen's 
compensation, — all  must  be  included  in  the  cost  of  the 
coal. 

To  this  must  be  added  a  reasonable  profit  and  the 
cost  of  labor.  And  the  minimum  selling  price  should 
be  fixed  by  the  government  so  as  to  cover  all  these. 

Standard  Of  Wages  For  Mine  Labor 

It  is  a  trite  saying  that  "labor  should  have  a  good 
living  wage."  The  public  should  be  willing  to  pay  such 
a  wage.  They  pay  now  for  their  coal  not  more  than  one- 
fourth  to  one-fifth  as  much  as  they  do  in  coal-exporting 
England. 


114 COAL    

Each  principal  industry  receives  a  larger  return  on 
its  investment  than  the  coal  industry  does,  largely  be- 
cause it  buys  its  coal  so  cheap.  The  miner  is  doing  a 
public  service  and  earning  his  living  in  a  grimy,  haz- 
ardous  work. 

If  we  could  agree  as  to  what  is  a  fair  annual  income 
for  mine  laborer,  including  the  necessities  and  comforts 
of  life  and  a  proper  saving  for  the  future,  and  knew 
the  number  of  days  the  days-man  will  probably  have 
an  opportunity  to  work,  of  course  his  proper  day's  wage 
is  fixed.  Also,  if  we  could  know  how  many  tons  of 
coal  a  pick-miner  can  dig  in  a  year,  his  proper  price 
per  ton  is  at  once  fixed,  so  that  he  can  earn  the  stand- 
ard yearly  income. 

It  seems  fair  to  say  that  it  ought  to  be  possible 
for  a  skilled  man  to  earn  ij>1500  a  year.  Many  large 
incomes  have  been  made  by  miners  in  the  past  even 
before  the  new  increase. 

Miners  in  the  non-union  mines  of  West  Virginia 
have  had  an  income  of  $3100  a  year;  with  the  added 
twenty-seven  per  cent,  their  earnings  would  be  nearly 
rour  thousand  dollars.  These  large  incomes  are  rather 
exceptional   and  in  circumstances   not   open  to  all. 

Probably  a  better  average  would  be  $1200  to  $1600 
a  year.  With  the  added  twenty-seven  per  cent,  the 
amount  would  be  $1500  to  $2000  a  year. 

The  Commission  appointed  by  the  President  fixed 
the  price  for  pick-mining  in  parts  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Ohio  at  $1.11  a  ton,  and  d!ay  labor  at  about  $6  a  day. 

To  earn  $1500  the  pick-miner  will  have  to  mine 
thirteen  hundred  and  fifty  tons  in  a  year,  which  is  six 
tons  a  day  for  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  days,  and 
the  days-man  must  work  two  hundred  and  fifty  days 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  115 

to  earn  $1500  or  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  days  to 
earn  $1350. 

Method  of  Settling  Labor  Disputes 

The  new  railroad  law  in  the  last  analysis  makes  the 
public  the  umpire.  Neither  operators  nor  miners  can 
dare  for  long  to  defy  public  opinion,  when  the  public 
is  both  interested  and  understands  the  issue.  Here- 
tofore there  has  been  no  effort  to  inform  the  public  as 
to  the  merits  of  any  labor  difficulty.  What  the  people 
learned  about  any  dispute  was  from  the  sensational 
misinformation  found  in  yellow  journals  and  speeches 
of  misinformed  office-seekers.  Adapting  the  provisions 
of  the  railroad  act  to  the  mining  industry  by  proper 
substitutions  and  eliminations,  we  have  the  promise 
of    a    suggestive    study    for    a    wise    solution. 

(1)  The  Federal  Mining  Commission  authorizes  the 
formation  of  a  "Mining  Board  of  Labor  Adjustment." 

A  Mining  Board  of  Labor  Adjustment  may  be  estab- 
lished by  agreement  between  any  operator,  group  of 
operators,  or  the  operators  as  a  whole,  and  any  em- 
ployees, or  organization,  or  group  of  organizations 
thereof.  Each  such  adjustment  board  shall  (1)  upon 
application  of  any  operator  or  organization  of  em- 
ployees, whose  members  are  directly  interested  in  the 
dispute ;  (2)  upon  written  petition,  signed  by  a  given 
number  of  unorganized  employees  directly  interested  in 
the  dispute ;  (3)  upon  the  board's  own  motion,  receive 
for  hearing  and  as  soon  as  practicable  and  with  due 
diligence  decide  any  disputes  involving  only  grievances, 
rules,  and  working  conditions.  This  board  does  not  con- 
sider either  wages  or  hours  of  work. 

(2)  The  Mining  Commission  creates  a  "Mining  Labor 
t>oard"  This  board  shall  consist  of  nine  members  ap- 
pointed by  the  President  by  and  with  consent  of  the 
Senate:  (1)  three  members  constituting  the  labor  group, 
chosen  by  the  President  from  not  less  than  six  nom- 


116  COAL 


inees  made  by  the  employees ;  (2)  three  members  con- 
stituting the  management  group,  chosen  by  the  Presi- 
dent from  not  less  than  six  nominees  made  by  the  op- 
erators ;  (3)  three  members  constituting  the  public 
group,  representing  the  public.  The  Labor  Board,  (1) 
upon  the  application  of  the  officers  of  organized 
labor,  whose  members  are  directly  interested  in 
the  dispute ;  (2)  upon  application  of  a  certain  member 
of  unorganized  employees  directly  interested  in  the 
dispute ;  (3)  upon  its  own  motion,  shall  receive  for 
hearing  and  with  all  due  diligence  decide  all  disputes 
with  respect  to  wages  of  employees.  All  decisions  of 
the  Labor  Board  with  respect  to  wages  shall  take 
into  consideration:  (1)  the  scale  of  wages  paid  for 
similar  kinds  of  work  in  other  industries ;  (2)  the  rela- 
tion between  wages  and  cost  of  living;  (3)  the  hazard 
of  the  employment;  (4)  training  and  skill  required;  (5) 
character  and  regularity  of  employment ;  (6)  any  in- 
equalities in  any  former  adjustment.  They  shall  gather, 
compile,  classify,  digest,  and  publish  data  and  informa- 
tion, to  the  end  that  the  Labor  Board  may  be  equipped 
to  perform  its  duties  and  the  Public  may  be  properly 
informed. 

The  Public  the  Umpire 

These  boards  do  not  set  out  any  specific  way  in  which 
their  decisions  shall  be  enforced. 

The  Labor  Board,  in  case  that  any  decision  is  violated  by 
any  operator,  employee  or  organization,  after  due  notice  and 
a  hearing  to  all  persons  directly  interested  in  said  violation, 
shall  determine  whether  such  violation  has  occurred,  and  make 
public  its  decision  in  such  manner  as  it  may  determine. 

This  is  simply,  so  far,  a  reliance  on  public  opinion 
for  enforcement  of  the  board's  decision.  In  the  opin- 
ion of  many,  an   anti-Strike   provision  ought  to  -  have 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  117 

been  kept  in  the  railroad  law.  But  Congress  weak- 
ened. They  were  afraid  to  deny  the  '"inviolable  right 
to  strike." 

Collective  Bargaining 

Bargaining  between  the  operators  and  the  United 
Mine  Workers. 

Collective  bargaining  has  but  one  meaning  in  the  minds 
of  the  officials  of  the  United  Mine  Workers.  It  means  bar- 
gaining between  the  United  Miners'  Union  and  operators. 
It  means  that  at  a  certain  time  a  convention  is  held 
at  which  delegates  representing  the  different  local 
unions  in  the  district  meet  with  representatives  of  the 
operators  in  that  district.  The  convention  organizes, 
then  the  miners  in  separate  caucus  formulate  their  de- 
mands for  an  increase  in  wages  above  their  former 
contract,,  and  other  conditions  favorable  to  the  miners. 
These  demands  are  presented  to  the  operators,  who  also- 
hold  a  caucus,  and  decide  what  they  can  do.  Of  course, 
the  miners'  demands  are  not  accepted.  It  is  not  ex- 
pected that  they  would  or  could  be,  for  that  matter. 
The  debate  is  carried  on  in  open  convention, — probably 
for  many  days.  Proposals  and  counter-proposals  may 
be,  made,  until  finalll  an  agreement  is  reached,  or  it  is 
found  impossible  to  agree. 

If  no  agreement  is  reached  before  the  end  of  the 
contract  period,  there  is  a  strike. 

If  they  agree  finally  on  terms,  wages,  length  of  time 
the  contract  is  to  run,  and  other  conditions,  the  opera- 
tors and  officials  of  the  union  sign  a  contract,  which 
is  supposed  to  bind  both  parties  and  every  member  of 
the  union. 

If  the  new  contract  is  fair  to  labor,  and  is  such  that 
operators  can  mine  and  make  a  reasonable  profit,  so  far 
it  is  good.  The  debate  and  negotiations  in  convention 
ought  to  show  both  parties  what  is  fair. 

It  ought  to  be  done  more  intelligently  than  it  could 
be  with  less  intelligent  and  poorly  informed  individual 


118  COAL 


miners.  The  operators  ought  now  to  be  able  to  decide 
what  they  can  afford  to  sell  for  and  what  labor  will 
cost  them.  But,  unfortunately,  this  is  not  true.  A 
contract  presupposes  equal  responsibility  on  the  part 
of  both  parties.  If  the  owner  of  a  mine  does  not  pay 
for  labor,  a  lien  is  entered  against  his  property,  which 
comes  ahead  of  almost  every  other  claim.  If  the  miner 
violates  his  contract,  made  for  him  by  his  officers,  the 
union  and  officials  can  in  no  wise  be  held  responsible. 
The  United  Mine  Workers  will  not  incorporate  so  as 
to  make  the  union  have  legal  responsibility.  They  are 
exempt  from  the  operation  of  the  anti-trust  legislation. 
The  miner's  vote  is  more  valuable  to  Congressmen  than 
the  votes  of  the  operators, — there  are  more  of  them. 
They  are  just  a  group  of  men  ostensibly  binding  them- 
selves to  do  certain  things,  if  it  is  convenient. 

The  operator  cannot  calculate  costs,  for  he  cannot 
tell  at  what  time  a  strike  will  come  that  will  add  very 
much  to  the  cost.  He  cannot  tell  whether  he  can  fill 
his  contract  orders,  for  he  cannot  tell  whether  the 
miners  will  work  or  not.  If  The  United  Miners'  Union 
will  incorporate  and  become  as  much  responsible  as 
the  operators  are,  and  the  individual  locals  and  men  can 
be  made  to  keep  their  contract  in  good  faith,  collective 
bargaining  between  the  union  and  operators  is  probably 
better  for  the  kind  of  labor  employed  in  mining. 

That  the  miners'  officials  had  become  convinced  that 
unauthorized  strikes  were  a  just  cause  of  complaint  on 
the  part  of  both  operators  and  the  public,  and  were 
bringing  the  union  into  disrepute,  is  shown  by  the  terms 
embodied  in  the  wage  agreement  made  in  April,   1920. 

Whereas  stoppage  of  work  in  violation  of  the  agreement 
has  become  so  serious  as  to  menace  the  success  and  perpetuity 
of  the  U.  M.  W.  of  A.  and  our  joint  relations,  this  conference 
instructs  the  respective  district  executive  boards  to  meet  the 
operators  for  the  purpose  of  agreeing  on  a  penalty  clause  for 
strikes  and  violation  of  agreements. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  119 


Then  again, 

The  fulfillment  of  this  agreement  is  guaranteed  by  the  inter- 
national union,  and  the  fulfillment  of  joint  agreements  entered 
into  in  any  district  shall  also  be  guaranteed  by  the  officers  of 
the  international  organization  as  well  as  by  the  officers  of  the 
district,  and  it  shall  be  their  duty  to  see  that  all  such  agree- 
ments, are  carried  out  in  the  letter  and  spirit. 

,  This  agreement  and  guarantee  was  signed  on  Thurs- 
day;  the   next  Tuesday's   papers   carried  the  headline: 

7,000  DAY-MEN   STRIKE  AT  ILLINOIS   MINES. 
So  much  for  the  value  of  the  guarantee. 

Ideal  Collective  Bargaining  in  a  Single  Company 

Collective  bargaining  could  be  ideal  in  a  company  if 
operator  and  miners  were  determined  to  be  fair,  the 
operator  only  demanding  a  reasonable  profit,  the  miners 
ready  to  work  for  their  mutual  benefit  and  accept  such 
wages  as.  the  business  can  pay.  Let  us  outline  such  a 
plan. 

The  operator  and_representatives  of  the  miners  meet 
to  determine  what  wages  can  be  paid  and  what  other 
conditions  in  the  mjne  are  to  be  observed  during  a 
period, — for  example,  for  one  or  two  years.  The  opera- 
tor goes  over  the  various  items  of  cost, — many  of 
which,  such  as  depletion,  depreciation,  workmen's  com- 
pensation, and  cost  of  idle  time,  had  never  entered  the 
miner's  head, — and  explains  what  cost  will  be  if  the 
mine  is  operated  all  the  possible  time,  and  what  it  will 
be  if  operated  other  less  number  of  days ;  that  is,  costs 
exclusive  of  labor. 

The  Miners'  representatives  present  the  case  of  la- 
bor with  like  estimate  of  cost  of  living,  comparison 
with  other  labor,  risk  of  the  work,  anc|  an  amount  for 
saving  account. 

This  sum  added  to  the  other  items  of  cost  will  give 
the  normal  cost.  Many  unforseen  causes  will,  no  doubt, 
increase  that  estimate. 


120  COAL 


The  selling  price  of  coal  cannot  be  forecast  with 
definiteness,  unless  the  government  has  fixed  prices. 

A  contract  is  made  on  a  sliding  scale  of  wages,  based 
on  this  normal  wage  and  normal  cost. 

(1)  The  operator  is  bound  to  do  all  he  can  to  keep 
down  all  the  costs  in  his  itemized  list,  consistent  with 
the  full  recovery  and  conservation  of  his   coal. 

(2)  The  miners  bind  themselves,  legally,  to  co- 
operate in  every  possible  way  to  reduce  the  cost  of 
mining,  economize  the  supplies,  mine  carefully,  and  re- 
frain from  strikes. 

Preparatory  to  making  out  the  payroll,  the  officers 
of  the  coal  company  and  representatives  of  the  miners 
canvass  the  costs  and  selling  price. 

If  the  remainder  after  deducting  costs  is  enough  to 
pay  labor  more  than  the  scale,  it  is  given  to  the  laborers. 
It  is  better  policy  to  give  laborers  part  of  the  excess 
and  pass  the  rest  to  their  account.  If  the  remainder  is 
not  enough  to  pay  the  full  scale,  wages  are  reduced  in 
equal  proportion  to  all.  Any  surplus  to  the  credit  of 
the  miner  may  be  used  to  bring  his  wages  up  to  the 
scale. 

On  the  average  the  men  will  make  more  money  in 
the  year  than  they  would  on  a  regular  scale  of  wages. 

Loss  from  strikes  to  both  operator  and  men  will  be 
eliminated.  Loss  from  sympathetic  strikes  will  be 
saved.  Union  dues  will  be  saved.  The  men  will  be 
freemen. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

IS  THE  RIGHT  TO  STRIKE  "INVIOLABLE"  ?  DOES   MIGHT   MAKE 

RIGHT? 

A  Vicious  Half-Truth— An  Individual  Right  to  Quit  Work— 
If  He  Has  No  Dependents— If  He  Has  Dependents— If  He  Has 
Contracted  to  Work,  Under  What  Conditions  May  He  Void 
His  Contract? — Group  of  Employees  Who  Have  Contracted 
to  Work — Strike  Is  a  Conspiracy  to  Do  Harm  to  Operators 
and  the  Public — Contract  Made  By  Officials  of  Union  Has 
Small  Binding  Force  on  Members  of  Union,  Since  They  Did 
Not  Individually  Sign  the  Contract — Small  Binding  Force  on 
Official  As  Long  As  They  Are  Not  Legally  Responsible. 

"The  inviolable  right  to  strike"  is  the  last  word  in 
the  argument  as  it  comes  from  the  President  and  is 
echoed  all  down  the  line  of  speakers  and  writers.  We 
are  startled  at  the  audacity  of  some  farm  organizations 
that  are  daring  enough  to  raise  a  voice  of  protest.  This 
right  to  strike  hasbeen  set  up  as  a  test  of  liberty.  Any- 
one who  has  enjoyed  that  privilege  has  had  just  that 
much  more  liberty  than  he  ever  knew  before. 

Stated  broadly :  "the  right  to  strike  is  inviolable"  is 
a  vicious  half-truth,  which  has  induced  untold  material 
damage  and  mental  and  bodily  suffering.  What  wrongs 
have  been  done  in  the  name  of  this  liberty !  This  slo- 
gan had  its  spring  in  a  very  sacred  human  right, — the 
right  of  a  freeman  to  his  own  labor.  It  came  from 
our  horror  of  slavery.  Abraham  Lincoln  voiced  that 
right  in  one  of  his  famous  speeches : 

When  I  have  seen  strong  arms  plowing,  sowing,  reaping, 
threshing,  grinding,  baking,  I  have  hoped  and  believed,  that, 
in  some  way,  in  God's  good  time,  the  hand  that  feeds  the 
mouth  might  own  it. 

The  man  who  argues  for  inviolability  hushes  all  oppo- 
sition with  the  challenge,  "Would  you  again  make  the 

121 


122 COAL 

workingman  a  slave?"  Let  us  look  a  little  more  closely 
at  this  inviolability  claim  as  an  universal  truth. 

(1)     As  applied  to  an  individual  laborer. 

The  individual  quitter  is  not  a  striker  in  the  proper 
sense,  it  takes  more  than  one  to  conspire,  but  his  rights 
are  much  like  the  rights  of  a  group  of  individuals. 

(a)  As  to  refusing  to  work  at  all.  If  the  maxim 
"he  that  does  not  work  shall  not  eat"  yere  strictly 
enforced,  there  would  be  little  refusal  to  work.  The 
man  who  begs  on  the  street  is  arrested;  if  he  wanders 
about  with  no  attempt  to  earn  a  livelihood,  he  is  ar- 
rested as  a  vagrant.  If  he  has  no  dependent  and  keeps 
out  of  sight  of  the  officers,  he  may  escape  work.  If, 
however,  he  has  dependents,  if. he  has  married  a  wife 
and  brought  children  into  the  world,  the  court  will  have 
something  to  say  when  he  pleads  his  inviolable  right 
to  loaf. 

(b)  If  he  engages  to  work  and  then  quits  at  his 
own  pleasure :  In  military  service  it  is  easy  to  say  what 
will  happen.  If,  as  a  soldier,  he  quits,  he  is  a  deserter. 
If  he  quits  on  the  battlefield,  he  is  shot.  If  he  quits  in 
the  navy,  it  is  mutiny.  In  civil  service,  the  consequences 
are  usually  not  so  serious  from  quitting  as  in  military 
service,  and  hence  not  so  severely  condemned.  In  civil 
work,  whether  he  has  a  right  to  quit  his  contract  work 
depends  on  circumstances.  The  presumption  is  that 
he  does  not  have  that  right.  The  burden  of  proof  to 
show  that  he  has  the  right  lies  on  him.  If  he  has 
contracted  to  do  work,  he  is  as  much  bound  to  work  as 
he  would  be  bound  to  deliver  any  other  merchandise 
which  he  has  sold.  His  labor  is  his  merchandise,  he  had 
a  right  to  sell  it.  He  did  it  freely.  His  contract  to 
work  is  voidable,  it  is  true,  but  only  on  the  same  grounds 
that  any  other  contract  may  be  voided.  (1)  If  he  is 
too  ill  to  work,  or  he  becomes  physically  unable  to  ful- 
fill his  contract  without  injury  to  himself,  he  is  relieved 
of  his  obligation.     An  act  of  God  abrogates  any  con- 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  123 

tract.  (2)  If  there  was  fraud  on  the  part  of  his  em- 
ployer. Fraud  vitiates  any  contract.  (3)  If  he  has 
hired  for  a  long  term  of  service,  and  circumstances 
which  could  not  have  been  foreseen  arise,  which  make 
it  impossible  to  carry  out  his  contract,  such  as  very 
high  cost  of  living,  and  nq  concession  will  be  made  by 
his  employer,  the  time  may  come  when  the  religious 
command  "swear  to  your  own  hurt  and  change  not"  is 
not  binding.  This  last  is  in  essence  the  foundation 
upon  which  strikers  base  their  defense. 

(2)  As  applied  to  a  group  of  organized  or  unorgan- 
ized employees.  This  is  the  only  sense  in  which  the 
term  strike  is  used,  A  strike  is  conspiracy,  and  hence 
could  only  apply  to  a  group;  not,  of  course,  that  every 
group  of  people  combining  to  do  a  certain  thing  is  a 
conspiracy  in  the  accepted  meaning  of  the  term.  A 
conspiracy  is  a  combination  to  do  an  illegal  or  morally 
wrong  thing.  Every  strike  is  without  any  doubt  such 
a  conspiracy. 

(1)  A  conspiracy  against  the  operators.  It  is  a 
combination  of  a  group  of  employees  to  do  such  harm 
to  the  employers  that  they  will  be  forced  to  grant  their 
demands.  It  takes  the  employer's  property  and  de- 
stroys it.  Often  the  destruction  is  patently  and  malic- 
iously done.  But  even  if  no  violence  is  committed,  the 
strikers  take  from  the  employer  interest  on  his  invest- 
ment during  the  strike,  his  overhead  expenses,  cost  of 
keeping  property  in  repair  and  restoring  it  to  a  work- 
ing condition,  and  loss  of  legitimate  profit.  These 
losses  can  never  be  recovered.  It  is  not  so  apparent 
as  is  destruction  of  machinery  or  tipple  but  it  is  as  real 
as  if  the  sums  thus  lost  were  converted  into  govern- 
ment bonds  and  burnt.  But,  it  is  objected  "the  em- 
ptoyees  do  not  create  this  loss,  they  simply  quit  work. 
It  is  the  misfortune  of  the  employer  to  have  a  plant 
that  will  not  operate  without  labor.  Or  rather,  it  is 
the  misfortune  of  the  plant  to  be  owned  by  a  stubborn 


124  COAL 


or  unjust  operator."  They  do  not  "quit  work"  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word.  If  they  did,  they  would 
bundle  up  their  effects  and  move  to  other  fields  or 
engage  in  other  work.  They  do  nothing  of  the  kind. 
They  attempt  to  hold  their  places  open  so  that  they 
can  return  to  them  when  they  get  ready.  They  use 
every  means  possible  to  prevent  others  from  filling 
their  places.  They  would  be  the  most  disappointed 
people  in  the  world  if  the  mine  is  dismantled  and  they 
are  forced  to  "quit  working"  in  reality.  No,  a  strike 
is  just  a  holdup,  a  "stand  and  deliver."  It  says  to  the 
operator :  "You  must  employ  us  to  work  for  you ; 
you  must  pay  us  our  price  whether  you  are  able  or 
not,  and  until  you  agree  to  do  it  we  will  do  you  such 
damage  that  you  will  be  forced  to  yield." 

(2)  Every  coal  strike  is  a  conspiracy  against  the 
public.  Not  that,  in  general,  there  is  any  malice  in  it 
toward  the  people ;  not  that  the  strikers  seek  to  extort 
money  from  the  public.  Most  employees  believe  that 
coal  barons  have  such  vast  profits  that  they  can  ab- 
sorb all  increase  of  cost  and  not  pass  it  on  to  the  con- 
sumer. As  far  as  they  think  of  consumers  at  all,  they 
think  of  them  as  the  revolver  ^that  they  point  at  the 
head  of  the  operator  to  compel  him  to  pay  the  de- 
mand and  resume  operation.  Notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  a  strike  is  not  aimed  at  the  public  in  malice,  yet 
it  is  a  conspiracy  that  always  works  damage  to  some 
part  of  the  public,  and  often  untold  suffering  and  misery. 

It  would  be  a  senseless  official  of  a  miners'  union 
who  would  order  a  strike  that  would  not  produce  in- 
convenience and  damage  to  some  consumer.  If  nobody 
needed  coal,  operators  wouldn't  want  to  operate,  couldn't 
operate,  and  couldn't  pay  any  wage,  much  less  an  in- 
creased wage.  A  time  is  chosen,  if  possible,  when 
demand  for  coal  is  most  urgent, — as  in  the  middle  of 
winter  in  1919,  when  shortage  of  coal  was  pronounced 
a  calamity. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  125 


A  "conspiracy  to  accomplish  a  selfish  purpose"  is  a 
harsh  sentence.  Use  milder,  softer  words  if  possible, 
but  they  must  mean  the  same  thing.  We  want  to  use 
as  soft  words  as  we  can  for  we  are  applying  it  to  hard 
working,  good  citizens,  just  and  honest  in  their  private 
relations,  and  worthy  of  our  respect.  The  mine  work- 
ers' contract  was  made,  as  they  insisted,  in  collective 
bargaining.  It  gives  them  solidaritv,  better  terms  in 
their  contract,  and  greater  strength  in  a  strike,  yet 
that  very  fact  makes  the  contract  sit  more  lightly  upon 
them.  A  contract  made  and  signed  by  their  officers 
in  a  distant  city,  by  men  whom  they  never  saw,  to 
the  breaking  of  which  there  is  no  penalty,  sits  lightly 
on  the  conscience.  They  say:  "The  men  who  signed 
the  contract  know  the  extent  of  its  binding  force  and 
have  a  risrht  to  absolve  us  from  its  operation  by  a 
wOrd."  If  every  worker  had  signed  for  himself,  it 
would  seem  more  binding.  The  great  majority  of  the 
miners  would  not  violate  a  contract  to  which  they  have 
set  their  own  hand  and  seal.  And  their  officers  would 
hesitate  long  if  they  were  made  legally  responsible. 

A  so-called  strike  at  the  end  of  a  contract  season. 
It  may  be  that  a  cessation  if  work  at  the  end  of  a 
contract  season  can  scarcely  be  called  a  strike. 

Ordinarily,  a  month  or  more  before  the  end  of  the 
contract  season  in  a  union  field,  operators  and  the 
officials  of  the  miners'  union  begin  to  bargain  for  a 
new  contract.  If  they  have  not  agreed  at  the  time  of 
the  end  of  the  contract,  in  the  anthracite  field  the  men 
continue  to  work  while  bargaining  is  still  carried  on. 
That  is  the  reasonable  thing  to  do.  They  know  that 
thev  will  continue  to  work  under  some  contract.  They 
have  committed  their  case  to  their  -'union  officials,  and 
the  award  will  no  doubt  be  retroactive  to  the  end  of  the 
contract  season,  and  by  continuing  to  work  they  will  not 
lose  the  wages  for  idle  time, 


126  COAL 

In  the  bituminous  field,  if  no  new  contract  has  been 
made  at  the  end  of  the  old  one,  the  men  quit  work. 
The  anthracite  men  do  more  wisely;  but  there  is  no 
compulsion  on  the  men.  As  long  as  there  is  no  con- 
spiracy to  do  harm,  it  is  scarcely  a  strike.  At  first  it 
is  a  kind  of  "stock  taking."  It  is  a  time  to  invoice 
conditions,  a  time  to  weigh  new  cost  of  living,  and 
measure  it  against  former  wages. 

The  workers  are  no  more  to  be  condemned  than 
are  operators  who  shut  down  to  install  new  machinery. 
Any  loss  to  the  operators  may  reasonably  be  charged 
up  as  being  incidental  to  the  business  of  coal  mining. 
Miners  cannot  be  blamed  if  they  insist  with  a  good 
deal  of  energy  that  their  places  be  left  open  to  them. 
But  when  a  reasonable  time  has  elapsed,  when  not  to 
operate  is  a  loss  not  properly  incident  to  mining,  the 
operators  have  a  right  to  say  to  their  former  em- 
ployees : 

"Let  us  reason  together.  If  we  cannot  give  what 
you  can  afford  to  take,  then  you  must  not  hinder  others 
from  working  for  us  who  can  accept  what  we  are  able 
to  pay." 

We  say  they  ought  to  be  able  to  say  that  much,  and 
proceed  to  operate  with  other  labor. 

But  they  cannot  do  anything  of  the  kind  as  matters 
are  now.  The  United  Miners'  Union  has  a  monopoly 
of  nearly  all  mine  labor  in  Western  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  In- 
diana, Illinois,  Kansas,  and  Iowa.  If  the  Miners'  Union 
would  give  the  operator  the  "privilege"  of  hiring  other 
than  union  men,  he  would  have  to  go  outside  of  those 
States,  at  least  for  skilled  miners.  The  two  contentions 
on  the  part  of  the  miners  are:  (1)  we  cannot  quit 
mining  and  go  into  other  lines  of  employment,  since 
mining  is  our  "business,  we  have  learned  and  know  no 
other  business;  (2)  since  we  must  work  in  the  mines 
our  only  weapon  of  defense  is  the  right  to  strike. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  127 

This  last  is  virtually  a  confession  that  striking  is 
conspiracy  to  inflict  damage;  but  a  plea  in  justification: 
"The  end  justifies  the  means."  To  the  plea  that  a  miner 
has  learned  the  business  and  knows  no  other,  the  opera- 
tor may  justly  reply: 

"You  learned  the  business  in  my  mine.  I  paid  you, 
under  the  unions  demands,  the  wages  of  a  skilled  worker 
when  you  were  unskilled.  I  bore  with  many  mistakes 
and  your  inexperience.  We  have  given  you  exclusive 
claim  on  your  place.  We  have  paid  you  good  wages 
while  you  are  learning.  Your  union  has  monopolized 
tne  labor  market.     You  owe  us  consideration." 

Many  individual  miners  accept  that  fact,  but  can- 
not act  on  it  so  long  as  the  officials  of  the  union  do 
not  declare  the  strike  off.  It  goes  on  for  months, — 
a  year  in  Ohio,  when  the  miners  struck  for  the  mine 
run  weighing  law.  It  goes  on  in  Colorado  in  the  midst 
of  rebellion  in  attempt  to  unionize  the  mines,  where 
the  issue  was  not  wages  at  all,  but  a  consuming  de- 
sire on  the  part  of  the  union  officials  to  have  more 
members  in  the  union,  so  that  more  fees  could  be  col- 
lected to  swell  the  balance  in  the  union  treasury.  Such 
things  ought  not  to  be.  Surely  some  way  such  as  we 
have  before  outlined  must  be  devised  by  which  a  just 
and  intelligent  court  may  settle  these  large  strikes  and 
prevent  the  thousands  of  petty  annoying  strikes  for 
every  imaginable  and  unimaginable  excuse. 


CHAPTER  XV 

INDUSTRIAL    DEMOCRACY    IN    THE    MINING    INDUSTRY 

Syndicalism  in  England — Syndicalism  in  the  United  States — 
Results  of  Syndicalism:  Wastefulness,  Coat  Supply  Absolutely 
in  Hands  of  Miners,  Unlimited  Wages — Co-operative  Coal  Min- 
ing— Miners  Own  a  Mine  and  Operate  "Democratically" — Min- 
ers Lease  a  Mine  and  Operate  "Democratically" — Example  of 
Such  Company  in  Indiana — Result  Disappointing — Theoretical 
Advantages:  Operator  May  Be  Paid  a  Fair  Compensation, 
Miner  Gets  All  His  Product  Will  Net  Him,  It  Settles  Labor 
Disputes — Weak  Points:  Inexperience  of  Miners  in  Manage- 
ment, Too  Little  Working  Capital,  Mine  Wastefully,  Mine 
Labor  Is  Too  Restless  and  Can  Bear  Neither  Plenty  Nor 
Scarcity — A  Company-Owned  Mine,  Managed  Democratically— 
Colorado  Fuel  and  Iron  Company. 

Democracy  is  the  name  to  conjure  with.  President 
Wilson  says,  "Industry  must  be  made  democratic,"  and 
all  down  the  line  it  goes.  One  wonders  what  definite 
thing  is  meant.  Very  few  mean  anything  definite.  It 
ought  to  mean  that  industry  in  this  democratic  nation 
should  be  conducted  in  a  way  befitting  a  great,  right- 
eous, democratic  people.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  man 
in  the  world  has  thought  out  to  the  end  what  it  will 
mean  to  us  if  it  be  driven  to  the  extreme  demanded  by 
the  miners  in  Great  Britain, — the  extreme  which  is  in 
the  hope  of  a  large  element  in  the  mining  industry  in 
this  country.  It  means  nationalization  of  the  mines, 
then  syndicalism. 

First.  Syndicalism  in  England 
The  Miners'  Federation  in  England  demanded  na- 
tionalization of  the  mines,  and  "while  you  wait,"  a  six- 
hour  day  and  thirty  per  cent  increase  in  wages.  A 
royal  commission,  called  the  Sankey  Commission, 
granted  them  a  seven-hour  day  in  1920  and  a  six-hour 
day  thereafter,  a  large  increase  in  wages,  and  declared 
that: 

128 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  129 


Nationalism  or  some  other  system  of  national  purchase  and 
joint  control  must  be  substituted  for  the  present  system  of 
ownership. 

The  miners  demand  immediate  fulfillment  of  the 
award.  "Mines  for  the  nation !"  was  their  slogan,  and 
a  taking  one  it  is.  Yet  at  a  subsequent  hearing  by  the 
commission  they  disclosed  their  real  purpose.  Nation- 
alism is  but  a  stepping-stone  to  syndicalism.  Not  mines 
for  the  nation  but  mines  for  the  miners  was  the  de- 
mand. They  demanded  that  the  nation  acquire  pos- 
session of  the  mines  (it  mattered  little  to  them  how) 
by  issuing  low-interest  bonds  for  their  purchase.  Then 
they  demand  that  the  mines,  without  requiring  any 
royalty,  be  given  over  to  the  "Mining  Council"  of  which 
one-half  was  to  be  appointed  by  the  Miners'  Federa- 
tion ;  that  the  mining  council  shall  have  no  power  to 
settle  wages  in  the  future,  except  in  consultation  with 
the  Miners'  Federation.  The  Miners'  Federation  still 
retains  the  right  to  strike. 

We  see  here  the  amazing  proposition  that  the  nation 
pass  over  to  a  Soviet, — which  is  not  responsible  to  any 
government  and  which  knows  probably  nothing  of  the 
management  of  the  coal  business, — the  industry  that 
has  made  England  great,  industrially  and  commercially, 
and  on  which  the  life  of  the  nation  depends. 

Second.     Syndicalism  in  the  United  States 

It  may  seem  that  syndicalism  in  Great  Britain  is 
purely  an  academic  subject  for  us  in  the  United  States. 
Let  us  hope  that  it  may  continue  to  be  such.  The 
American  miners  demanded  twice  as  large  increase  as 
did  the  British,  and  in  addition,  to  the  six-hour  day  they 
demanded  a  five-days  week,  and  from  time-and-a-half 
to  double-time  for  extra  hours.  They  also  commenced 
by  demanding  that  no  mine  should  work  more  than 
one  shift  in  twenty-four  hours.  This  strange  demand 
would  often  work  hardship  on  the  operator,  but  usually 


130  COAL 


more  hardship  on  the  miners  than  on  the  operators.  In 
a  mine  that  has  twice  as  many  men  as  it  has  places 
for  them  to  work,  half  of  the  men  would  be  idle  every 
other  day.  Each  man  would  only  work  fifteen  hours 
a  w;eek  or  an  average  of  two  and  a  half  hours  every 
week-day. 

This  demand  was  not  finally  pressed.  It  is  well 
to  reserve  some  things  for  another  time.  Neither  was 
nationalization  pressed.  Officers  of  the  Miners'  Union 
denied  that  they  were  demanding  it.  No  one  knows 
better  than  union  officers  that  nationalization  and  ulti- 
mate syndicalism  is  the  coveted  goal.  The  harder  the 
terms  of  settlement  at  each  new  contract  time, — the 
more  miserable  they  make  the  life  of  the  operator, — 
the  nearer  is  that  goal.  The  plea  for  syndicalism  is  one 
that  appeals  to  the  mine  worker.  Coal  in  the  ground 
was  placed  there  without  any  work  of  man.  It  has 
no  value  in  the  ground.  All  the  value  it  has  came  to 
it  from  the  labor  put  upon  it, — therefore  labor  owns  it. 

It  was  said  above  that  no  man  has  fully  thought  out 
the  ultimate  consequences  of  syndicalism  of  coal.  Some 
evident  consequences  will  suffice  for  our  present  dis- 
cussion. 

1.     Wastefulness  in  Mining 

This  comes  about  from  two  causes.  First,  a  lack  of 
incentive  to  conservation.  Why  should  the  miner  save 
coal?  It  is  not  his  coal.  He  only  owns  what  he  mines. 
There  is  enough  coal  in  some  mine  to  last  him  while 
he  wants  to  work.  Then  the  public  of  the  future,  why 
should  he  be  solicitous  about  them?  They  are  perfect 
strangers?  Second,  lack  of  Capital.  Capital!  That  is 
the  malevolent  thing  that  they  have  been  trying  to 
get  clear  of  in  all  this  struggle  toward  liberty.  Per- 
haps the  mines  are  well  equipped  when  taken  over. 
No  capital  is  needed,  the  equipment  they  think  will  last 
till   the   coal   is   exhausted.     Earnings   are   good,   wise 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP-OR  CONTROL  131 


operators  would  not  pay  it  all  out  in  dividends  but  put 
some  to  surplus  for  depreciations.  But  the  miners 
clamor  for  dividends,  and  cannot  see  why  large  divi- 
dends are  not  paid  if  earned.  Month  by  month  the 
subtle  forces  of  destruction  are  at  work.  Poorer  equip- 
ment makes  more  costly  and  decreased  production.  De- 
creased output  will  make  reduced  profits  and  reduced 
dividends.  Reduced  dividends  bring  grumbling,  then 
mutiny.  Output  must  be  increased  and  to  do  it,  "easy" 
coal  must  be  mined  wastefully. 

Syndicalism  makes  impossible  that  heroic  work  that 
every  great  industry  does  every  now  and  then  when 
managed  by  shrewd  men  backed  by  capital.  An  inter- 
esting instance  of  such  "wrecking  for  profit"  or  '"wast- 
ing to  save"  is  given  by  Charles  W.  Schwab  in  his 
reminiscences    of   Andrew   Carnegie. 

Mr.  Schwab  had  built  a  new  converting  mill  for 
the  Carnegie  Company.  When  it  was  done  he  took 
Mr.  Carnegie  out  to  see  it.  As  they  were  looking  over 
the  mill,  Mr.  Carnegie  said: 

"I  can  see  by  your  expression  that  you  are  disap- 
pointed.    There  is  something  wrong  with  this  mill." 

Mr.  Schwab  answered:  / 

"No,  it  is  just  what  I  told  you  it  would  be.  But  if 
I  had  to  do  it  over  again,  there  is  one  thing  which  has 
just  recently  been  discovered  that  I  would  introduce, 
and   I   am   sure   it   would  result   in    further   economy." 

Whereupon  Carnegie  as'ked: 

"Can  you  change  this  mill?" 

"It  would  mean  tearing  this  down  and  rebuilding  it." 

"That  is  the  right  thing  to  do,"  said  Carnegie.  "Tear  it 
down  and  do  it  over_  again." 

And  although  that  mill  had  been  running  only  twu 
months  it  was  torn  down  and  rebuilt,  and  the  return  upon 
the  capital  thus  expended  repaid  the  firm  manyfold. 

When  the  time  comes  when  a  steam  plant  in  good 
condition    could    be    replaced    with    great    advantage    in 


132  COAL 


economy  by  an  electric  installment,  or  by  installing  a.n 
equipment  for  receiving-  power  from  a  central  station, 
it  takes  capital  to  do  it.  If  money  could  be  made  by 
burning  their  coal  in  byproduct  ovens  it  takes  a  good 
deal  of  capital.  If  it  is  economy  of  power  to  throw 
away  old  cars  and  buy  ball-bearing  cars  it  again  takes 
capital. 

2.     Coal  Supply  Will  Be  Absolutely  in  the  Hands  of 
the  Miners'  Union 

The  union  now  has  the  monopoly  in  mine  labor  in 
unionized  fields.  Not  a  car  of  coal  can  come  out  of  a 
unionized  mine  except  by  indulgence  of  the  union  offi- 
cials. The  unions  then  will  have  a  monopoly  of  coal. 
The  unions  reserve  the  right  to  strike.  What  control 
can  be  more  complete?  A  strike  is  both  a  strike  and 
a  lockout,  for  the  union  is  both  operator  and  miner. 
A  strike  against  its  own  award  by  the  union  or  a 
strike  against  nothing  in  the  world,  cuts  off  indefinitely 
ail  coal  supply  except  what  miners  mine  for  their  own 
use.  No  such  procedure  is  imaginable  it  is  said.  It 
might  help  the  imagination  a  little  to  recall  what  did 
take  place  in  the  middle  of  the  winter  of  1919.  The 
public  was  not  in  the  tender  thoughts  of  the  officials 
of  the  union.  But  in  some  localities  miners,  who  were 
suffering  from  cold,  petitioned  operators  that  they  be 
allowed  to  mine  coal  for  themselves  but  not  for  the 
operators   or  the   people. 

3.     Unlimited  Wage  Fixing 

In  the  British  scheme,  "The  Mining  Council  has  no 
power  to  fix  wages  except  in  conference  with  the  Fed- 
eration of  Labor."  Imagine,  if  you  can,  a  Miners' 
Union  coming  to  a  council,  one-half  of  whose  members 
are  miners,  and  making  a  demand  for  sixty  per  cent 
advance,  or  any  other  per  cent  and  any  schedule  of 
hours,   and   being   turned   down.     The   miner   buys   his 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  133 


own  labor  at  his  own  price,  and  passes  the  cost  on  to 
the    consumer-public   who   has    no   defense. 

In  fact,  the  public  has  a  defense.  The  time  would 
come  when  senseless  strikes  and  mounting  costs  would 
become  unbearable,  and  the  people  would  rise  in  their 
righteous  strength  and  sweep  away  the  intolerable  op- 
pression, and  restore  a  reign  of  reason  and  sane  gov- 
ernment. 

Third.     Co-operative  Coal  Mining 

A  co-operative  coal  mining  company  is  as  nearly  a 
"democratic"  mining  company  as  can  be  found.  As  in 
a  democracy,  every  member  of  such  a  company  has  one 
vote  and  only  one.  The  members  have  an  equal  inter- 
est in  the  success  of  the  business.  Theoretically  it 
leaves  nothing  to  be  desired  on  the  part  of  labor.  No 
profiteering  on  the  fruits  of  toil.  It  is  the  nearest 
approach   we   have    to   "mines    for    the   miners." 

There  are  two  kinds   of   co-operative  companies. 

1.  A  company  of  miners  owning  a  mine  and  oper- 
ating it  "democratically."  This  kind  of  company  is  rare 
and  the  operation  small.  A  company  of  miners  cannot 
generally  raise  enough  money  to  buy  a  valuable  mine 
unless  the  owning  company  is  in  financial   distress. 

2.  A  company  of  miners  leasing  a  mine  and  working 
it  "'democratically." 

The  method  of  procedure  may  be  illustrated  by  the 
example  of  a  co-operative  coal  mining  company  organ- 
ized in  Indiana.  By  permission  of  the  Outlook  some 
portions  of  an  article  written  in  1909  by  the  present 
writer,  who  was  president  of  the  owning  company,  will 
be  given. 

An  experiment  was  inaugurated  in  a  mine  near  Terre  Haute, 
Indiana,  which  has  some  features  that  are  unique.  The  plant 
with  which  the  experiment  was  made  consisted  of  a  coal  vein 
seven  and  a  half  feet  thick,  the  mine  capable  of  producing 
five  hundred  tons  a  day  and  capable  of  being  developed  in  a 
few  months  to  double  that  amount. .  The  mine  was  equipped 


134  COAL 


with  modern  machinery.  The  mine  was  near  a  good  market, 
good  coal,  conditions  of  top  and  bottom  such  that  miners  can 
produce  an  unusually  large  amount  of  coal  per  day. 

The  miners  were  mostly  Americans,  more  than  ordinarily 
intelligent.  The  miners  entered  into  negotiations  with  the 
owners  of  the  mine  for  a  lease  for  a  year,  with  privilege  of 
renewal.  The  officers  of  the  mining  company  agreed  to  lease 
on  terms  most  liberal  to  the  miners,  in  order  that  they  might 
be  encouraged  to  make  the  experiment.  Looking  to  the  safe- 
guarding of  the  property,  the  following  provisions  were  em- 
bodied in  the  lease : 

First,  the  miners  shall  form  a  corporation  with  legal  re- 
sponsibility. 

Second,  all  supplies  for  repairs  about  the  mine  and  all 
labor  must  be  paid  in  cash.  This  was  necessary  so  that  no 
labor  or  material  liens  could  be  entered  against  the  property. 

Third,  the  mine  must  be  operated  in  accordance  with  best 
engineering  practice.  The  mine  must  be  kept  in  good  physical 
condition.  .^L 

The  compensation  to  the  mine  owners  was  to  be  determined 
as  follows :  First,  rails,  props  and  other  necessary  supplies 
shall  be  bought  out  of  gross  receipts  for  coal  sold.  Second,  for 
three  months,  miners  and  all  laborers  employed  in  producing 
coal  shall  be  paid  in  full  in  accordance  with  the  scale  govern- 
ing the  Miners  Union  in  the  Terre  Haute  district  before  any 
profits  shall  be  distributed.  Third,  for  three  months,  the  les- 
sor company  shall  receive  one-fourth  of  the  net  profits  after 
deducting  wages  and  expenses.  If  there  are  no  profits  the 
owners  of  the  mine  receive  nothing  for  the  coal  taken  out, 
or  use  of  their  machinery.  Fourth,  after  three  months,  the 
lessor  company  shall  receive  five  cents  a  ton  and  one-fourth 
of  the  net  profits  after  deducting  wages  and  expenses. 

The  mining  company  adopted  by-laws  containing  the  usual 
provisions  and  the  following  distinctive  ones: 

1.  All  stockholders  must  sign  these  by-laws. 

2.  No  debts  shall  be  incurred  by  this  Company.  Purchases 
must  be  made  only  for  cash. 

3.  The  association  and  members  of  the  association  shall 
be  governed  by  the  Terre  Haute  agreement  concerning  wages 
and  mine  conditions. 

4.  Every  person  working  in  or  around  the  mine  shall  be 
a  stockholder  in  the  Union  Mining  Association. 

5.  Every  stockholder  agrees  to  divide  losses  accruing  from 
the  operation  of  the  mine,  and  hereby  instructs  the  book- 
keeper of  the  company  to  check  off  his  wages  any  losses  which 
accrue  to  said  company  by  reason  of  the  operation  of  the  mine. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  135 


6  Every  stockholder  hereby  agrees  to  have  the  bookkeeper 
check  off  his  wages  the  sum  of  five  dollars  to  pay  for  one 
share   of   stock   in    the   Union   Mining  Association. 

7  Any  member  shall  have  the  right  to  give  up  his  mem- 
bership by  assigning  his  certificate  of  stock  back  to  the  Treas- 
urer of  the  company.  His  membership  fee  shall  not  be  re- 
turned to  him.  Only  one  share  of  stock  shall  be  issued  to  the 
same  member,  and  each  member  shall  have  only  one  vote. 

8.  Each  member  hereby  agrees  to  hold  no  other  member, 
or  the  association  as  a  body,  responsible  for  his  death  or  any 
accident  which  may  befall  him  during  his  work  in  or  around 
the   mine.  , 

They  started  with  a  membership  of  eighty-five.  The  capital 
stock  of  Four  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  was  too  small, 
but  a  large  capital  is  not  necessary,  as  the  principal  outlay  of 
money  in  coal  mining  is  for  miners'  wages.  And  in  the  mat- 
ter of  wages,  the  men  need  not  pay  themselves  till  they  get 
the  money,  but  they  sold  for  cash. 

They  elected  seven  directors  from  their  members.  The  di- 
rectors elected  President,  Secretary-Manager,  Treasurer,  and 
Sales  Agent.  The  only  salaried  officer  was  the  Secretary- 
Manager,  who  received  one  hundred  dollars  a  month  with  his 
salary  subject  to  assessment  in  case  of  loss. 

The  mine  ran  steadily  while  other  mines  in  the  locality 
were  running  three  or  four  days  in  the  week.  The  first  half 
month  the  receipts  for  coal  just  paid  expenses,  wages  in  full, 
but  owners  got  no  profits.  The  second  half  month,  the  receipts 
paid  expenses,  miners  'wages  in  full,  and  sixty-six  dollars  for 
repairs.  The  next  three  half  months  the  receipts  were  not 
enough  to  pay  full  wages.  The  assessment  ran  one-half  month 
?s  high  as  twenty-five  per  cent.  But  even  at  that,  owing  to 
greater  number  of  days  operated,  the  amount  received  by  the 
men  was  nearly  twice  as  much  as  men  in  other  mines  received. 
Before  the  end  of  the  three  months  they  disbanded  their  or- 
ganization  and   surrendered  the   lease. 

Method  of  Settling  Disputes 

The  outcome  of  this  experiment  is  disappointing.  It 
is  true  it  was  undertaken  at  a  time  of  depression  in  the 
coal  business.  But  the  coal,  machinery,  and  equipment 
were  given  to  them  absolutely  during  the  time  they  con- 
tinued to  operate.  The  failure  certainly  is  not  chargeable 
to  profiteering  barons.  No  doubt  such  companies,  if  they 
succeeded,  would  solve  some  of  the  serious  problems  of 
the'  coal  business. 


136  COAL 


1.  If  a  small  minimum  royalty  is  paid  the  owner, 
enough  to  cover  depletion,  depreciation,  and  interest,  he 
does  not  throw  away  his  coal  absolutely  as  he  often  does  in 
the  ordinary  way  of  operating.  Also,  by  a  moderate  shar- 
ing in  the  profits  when  they  are  earned,  it  helps  to  com- 
pensate him  for  the  use  of  his  money  and  brains  in  a 
hazardous  business. 

2.  It  gives  the  miner  for  his  wages  all  that  the  pro- 
duct of  his  labor  fairly  brings  in  the  market.  In  a  good 
market  his  wages  are  automatically  raised  In  his  increased 
profits.  In  a  low  market  he  gets  more  steady  work  and 
makes  a  better  monthly  wage  than  is  made  by  other  min- 
ers working  at  a  higher  wage  and  fewer  days. 

3.  It  settles  all  labor  disputes.  The  hard-and-fast 
scale  fixed  by  the  union,  which  keeps  the  men  idle  rather 
than  allow  them  to  work  at  a  wage  which  the  market  can 
stand,  is  released.     The  miners  are  now  free  men. 

4.  It  thus  conserves  two  of  the  most  valuable  resources 
of  the  nation, — life  and  coal.  The  owner  gets  something 
for  his  coal.  The  miner,  instead  of  being  idle  and  losing 
that  many  days  from  his  life,  redeems  the  days  which  he 
now  works  instead  of  being  idle. 

Some  Weak  Points  in  Co-operative  Coal  Mining 

1.  It  is  one  thing  to  be  able  to  mine  coal  and  bring 
it  to  the  surface,  and  quite  a  different  thing  to  manage 
such  a  complex  industry  as  the  coal  business.  A  striking 
illustration  of  that  fact  was  furnished  by  a  partnership 
formed  a  few  years  ago,  by  five  of  the  most  expert  mining 
men  in  Western  Pennsylvania,  to  operate  and  manage  a 
mine  in  the  Middle  West.  The  outcome  was  disastrous ; 
thousands  of  dollars  were  sunk  in  the  project,  because  their 
experience  and  skill  were  below  ground,  while  a  mine  is 
managed  above  ground. 

2.  Coal  mining  requires  large  operating  capital  to  be 
profitable.  Betterments,  new  devices,  new  requirements 
by  the  government,  sales  made  on  time, — all  these  require 
a  large  working  capital. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  137 

3.  Such  companies  mine  wastefully,  they  do  not  keep 
the  mine  in  good  condition,  they  leave  coal  in  the  mine 
that  ought  to  be  recovered.     The  coal  is  not  theirs. 

4.  The  character  of  a  large  proportion  of  mine  labor : 
They  do  not  settle  down  at  one  place  for  a  life  work ; 
they  squander  their  time  and  money ;  if  wages  are  good, 
they  either  spend  as  they  go  or,  if  they  accumulate  some 
money,  they  lie  off  until  expenses  catch  up  with  profits. 
Then  when  times  of  low  profit  come,  they  have  no  money 
to  supplement  scant  wages,  and  they  either  drift  away 
or  become  centers  of  rebellion,  and  finally  wreck  the  com- 
pany. 

The  conclusion  seems  to  be  that,  except  in  very  ex- 
ceptional cases  in  small  co-operative  companies,  the  old 
way  of  operating  is  better  for  miners  and  owners  alike. 

A  company  strong  financially,  strong  in  the  ability  to 
manage,  operate,  and  market  its  coal,  content  with  fair 
profits  that  the  business  deserves,  paying  its  men  all  it 
can  afford  while  it  conserves  its  coal,  conserves  its  men's 
lives  and  furnishes  them  good  living  conditions,  cannot  be 
matched  by  the  ordinary  co-operative  company. 

Fourth.      A   Company-Owned  Mine   That  Is  Managed 
Democratically 

In  a  nation  that  is  democratic,  citizens,  irrespective 
of  race,  creed,  color,  or  association,  are,  in  matters  per- 
taining to  their  rights,  entitled  to  representation  by  men 
chosen  by  ballot  and  given  power  to  speak  on  their  be- 
half in  matters  that  concern  their  welfare. 

A  democratic  mining  company  must,  as  nearly  as  the 
conditions  will  warrant,  assure  to  every  employee,  irrespec- 
tive of  race,  color,  creed,  and  political  or  union  affiliation, 
representation  with  reference  to  his  employment,  and  work- 
ing and  living  conditions. 

The  Colorado  Fuel  and  Iron  Company,  in  1916,  sub- 
mitted to  its  employees  a  plan,  which  was  adopted  almost 


'138  COAL 


unanimously  by  them,  and  which  seems  to  have  embodied 
these  principles  very  well. 

1.  In  the  matter  of  discrimination  between  employees: 

There  shall  be  no  discrimination  by  the  company  or  by  any 
of  its  employees  on  account  of  membership  or  non-membership 
in  any  society,  fraternity  or  union. 

This  is  essential  in  a  true  democratic  industry. 

2.  In  the  matter  of  election  of  employees'  representa- 
tives. 

The  mines  of  the  company  are  divided  into  districts, 
each  district  elects  by  ballot  representatives,  one  for  each 
one  hundred  and  fifty  employees.  Conferences  are  held 
between  these  representatives  and  the  officers  of  the  com- 
pany at  least  every   four  months. 

These  conferences  discuss  freely  matters  of  mutual  interest 
and  concern  to  the  company  and  its  employees,  embracing 
suggestions  to  promote  increased  efficiency  and  production,  to 
improve  working  and  living  conditions,  to  avoid  friction  and 
promote  cordial  relations  between  the  company  and  employee. 

3.  Annual  joint  meeting  of  all  employees'  representa- 
tives and  officers  of  the  company. 

Reports  are  made  by  the  several  joint  committees,  and 
matters  concerning  the  common  interest  of  company  and 
employees,  requiring  collective  action  are  considered. 

4.  At  the  beginning  of  each  year  joint  committees  on 
industrial  relations  are  selected  for  each  district.  These 
are  permanent  committees,  and  four  in  number  for  each 
district.  Each  committee  is  composed  of  six  members, 
three  selected  by  the  employees  and  three  by  the  company. 

(a)  Joint  committee  on  safety  and  accidents. 

This  deals  with  inspection  of  mines,  prevention  of 
accidents,  safe-guarding  machinery  and  dangerous  work- 
ing-places, use  of  explosives,  fire  protection,  and  first  aid. 

(b)  Joint    Committee    On     Sanitation,    Health,    and 

Housing 
This  deals  with  hospitals,  physicians,  nurses,  occupa- 
tional   diseases,    tuberculosis,     sanitation,    water     supply, 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  139 


sewage  systems,  garbage  disposal,  street  cleaning,  houses 
as  homes,  rent,  gardens,  and  fencing. 

(c)  Joint  Committee  On  Recreation  and  Education 
This  deals  with  club  houses,  halls,  playgrounds,  enter- 
tainments, athletics,  field  days,  holidays,  schools,  libraries, 
classes  for  foreigners,  technical  education,  lectures, 
churches,  Sunday  schools,  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  and  classes  in  first 
aid. 

(d)  Joint  Committee  On  Industrial  Co-operation  And 
Conciliation 
They  may,  of  their  own  initiative,  or  have  referred  to 
them  by  the  President  at  any  time  throughout  the  year, 
any  matter  pertaining  to  prevention  or  settlement  of  indus- 
trial disputes,  terms  and  conditions  of  employment,  main- 
tenance of  order  or  other  differences. 

Method  of  Settling  Disputes 

(1)  Any  employee  or  group  of  employees  having  a 
complaint  or  grievance  may,  either  directly  or  through  the 
employees'  committee,  take  it  up  with  the  officers  of  the 
company.  If  they  fail  to  adjust  the  differences,  upon  re- 
quest by  the  employees'  representatives,  or  upon  the  initia- 
tive of  the  president,  the  difference  shall  be  referred  to  the 
joint  committee  on  industrial  co-operation  and  conciliation 
of  the  district,  and  the  decision  of  the  majority  of  the 
committee  shall  be  binding  on  all  parties. 

This  board,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  is  equally  com- 
posed of  miners'  representatives  and  company  representa- 
tives. 

If  this  board  cannot  agree,  they  may  do  either  of  three 
things. 

First.  They  may  select  an  umpire  to  sit  with  them,  and 
his  decision  is  binding  on  all  the  parties. 

Second.  They  may  submit  the  question  to  arbitration, 
employees  and  the  company  each  appointing  one  and  they 
a  third  if  the  two  cannot  agree. 


140  COAL 


Third.  They  may  ask  the  industrial  commission  of 
the  State  to  appoint  all  the  arbitrators,  or  itself  arbitrate 
the  difference.  This  plan,  of  which  the  foregoing  is  a 
skeleton,  seems  as  near  a  democratic  control  as  can  well 
be  devised,  and  one  which  it  would,  as  far  as  circumstances 
permit,  be  well  if  all  mining  companies  adopted. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  in  the  great  strike  in  1915  no 
demand  was  made  for  more  wages  or  better  working  con- 
ditions, but  it  was  an  effort  by  the  United  Mine  Workers 
to  unionize  the  mines. 

By  agreement,  a  board  of  conciliation  has  served  to 
secure  peace  for  twelve  years  in  the  anthracite  coal  field. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   ANTHRACITE    FIELD    IN    PENNSYLVANIA 

Little  Need  in  This  Field  for  Control  of  Waste— How  the 
Anthracite  Coal  Was  Saved  from  Erosion— How  It  Became 
Anthracite  from  Lower-Grade  Coal— Description  of  the  Four 
Fields— Causes  of  Former  Waste:  Cheap  Land,  Crude  Way  of 
Mining,  Cheap  Royalty,  Ignorance  of  Value,  Small  Commercial 
Value,  Because  It  Would  Not  Burn,  Because  It  Was  Hard  to 
Get  to  Market,  Then  Overproduction  and  Waste— Methods  of 
Reaching  a  Market  in  Cities,  From  Northern  Field,  Schuylkill 
Field  and  Lehigh  Field— Efforts  to  Control  Production  and 
Price-Cutting  —  Miners  Produced  Intermittently  —  Railroads 
Pooled  Coal — Railroads  Purchase  Coal  Land  By  Indirection- 
Control  a  Large  Part  of  Independent  Output  By  the  "65  Per 
Cent.  Agreement" — Causes  That  Have  Been  Eliminated—Low 
Cost  of  Land — Cost  of  Weak  Companies  in  Anthracite  Mining — 
Sinking  Mine — Thin  Veins — Pumping — Taking  Care  of  Water 
After  It  Is  Pumped — Props  and  Support  for  Roof — Supply 
Boiler  Water — Ventilating — Fighting  Fires — "Manufacture"  of 
Coal — Workmen's  Compensation — Modern  Conveniences — Dura- 
tion of  Life  of  Anthracite. 

I  have  deferred  treatment  of  this  anthracite  field  till 
now,  because  avoidable  waste  in  mining  has  been  practi- 
cally eliminated  in  the  entire  field.  If  so,  government 
control  to  stop  waste  is  not  necessary.  To  the  public  in 
general  it  is  a  surprising  statement  that  anthracite  mining 
does  not  need  regulating. 

The  anthracite  operators  have  been  the  most  investi- 
gated people  in  the  United  States.  Some  members  of  Con- 
gress are  very  fond  of  investigating  something.  If  they 
can  think  of  nothing  else  to  investigate,  the  proposal  to 
call  the  anthracite  Barons  to  account  strikes  a  popular 
chord.  They  recall  the  report  of  the  Pennsylvania  Com- 
mission, appointed  in  1893  to  investigate  waste  in  mining 
that  up  to  that  time  a  ton  and  a  half  of  anthracite  had  beer, 
wasted  or  left  in  the  ground  for  every  ton  that  was  pro- 
duced. 

They  charge  that  railroads  own  ninety-three  per  cent 
of  the  anthracite  coal  now  unmined,  and  control  all  the 

141 


142  COAL 


coal  except  three  per  cent;  that  they  combine  to  limit 
output;  that  they  agree  among  themselves  to  fix  prices. 

All  these  statements  are  true,  and  probably  more  ab- 
horrent things.  Yet,  in  face  of  it  all,  we  say,  government 
control  is  not  needed  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  is 
needed  in  most  of  the  bituminous  field.  It  is  necessary, 
therefore,  briefly  to  review  the  history  of  anthracite  min- 
ing the  difficulties  surrounding  its  early  development,  which 
led  to  waste,  confusion,  loss,  and  bankruptcy ;  its  struggles 
toward  a  stable  and  sane  industry,  and  the  final  evolution 
of  the  present  monopolistic  control. 

We  shall  then  be  in  position  to  answer  the  questions : 
"Are  present  conditions  warranted, — should  government 
intervene  to  change  conditions  for  the  better?" 

In  order  that  we  may  better  be  able  to  follow  the  dis- 
cussion, it  is  necessary  to  give  a  brief  description  of  the 
anthracite  field. 

The  Pennsylvania  anthracite  is  the  small  remnant  of 
a  very  large  area  of  coal  land  that  covered  the  present 
anthracite  fields  and  extended  to  the  north  and  west  over 
an  area  at  least  five  or  six  times  as  large  as  the  present 
field.  This  area  was  comparatively  level  and  covered,  with 
numerous  veins,  probably  more  than  are  left  in  the  deepest 
part  of  the  anthracite  field.  The  coal  was  not  anthracite 
but  coal  at  an  earlier  stage  of  development, — bituminous, 
or  even  lignite  and  peat. 

Then  came  the  time  when  a  great  thrust  in  the  crust 
of  the  earth  set  in'  from  the  southeast,  creasing  that  entire 
area  into  waves  of  rocks  with  their  included  coal  veins. 

Then  came  the  great  ice  sheet,  which,  moving  down 
from  the  north,  and  northeast,  like  a  great  carpenter's 
plane,  sheared  off  the  tops  of  the  ridges  and  the  other  high- 
lying  areas,  carrying  with  it  the  easily  eroded  rocks  and 
coal.  Fortunately,  areas  totaling  about  four  hundred  anH 
eighty-four  square  miles  in  extent  lay  deep  down  in  the 
folds  between  ridges  of  very  hard  rock,  which  resisted  the 
cutting  plane  and  saved  four  detached  fields  from  destruc- 
tion. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  143 


The  coal  thus  saved  was  transformed  into  anthracite, 
as  the  result  of  these  great  movements,  either  according  to 
the  generally  accepted  theory,  by  being  robbed  of  a  large 
part  of  its  volatile  matter  by  a  coking  process  from  the 
heat  generated  by  the  thrust  pressure,  or  losing  its  volatile 
matter  by  a  gradual  "evaporation,"  through  the  cracks  in 
the  overlying  crusts.  By  this  upheaving  and  eroding  pro- 
cess, the  entire  field  is  divided  into  four  principal  basins, 
each  surrounded  by  a  rim  of  mountains: 

(a)  Northern  or  Wyoming  Field,  extending  nearly  east 
and  west,  which  contained  originally  a  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-six  square   miles. 

(b)  Eastern  Middle  field,  lying  about  fifteen  miles 
south  and  southwest  of  the  Wyoming  Field,  which  con- 
tained originally  thirty-three  square  miles. 

(c)  Western  Middle  Field,  containing  originally  ninety- 
four  square  miles. 

(d)  Schuylkill  Field,  south  and  almost  parallel  to  the 
western  middel  field  originally  containing  one  hundred  and 
eighty  square  miles. 

For  trade  description,  the  entire  area  is  divided  into 
three  fields : 

(1)  Wyoming. 

(2)  Lehigh,  including  Eastern  Middle  Field  and  the 
part  of  the  Schuylkill  east  of  the  Schuylkill  River. 

(3)  Schuylkill,  including  the  Western  Middle  Field, 
and  the  part  of  the  Southern  Field  lying  west  of  the 
Schuylkill  River.*  (See  Map.) 

The  Pennsylvania  anthracite  field,  small  as  it  is  com- 
pared with  the  various  bituminous  areas,  is  the  largest, 
most  valuable  proved  field  of  anthracite  in  the  world,  In 
fact,  most  of  the  so-called  anthracite  of  which  we  read 
is  not  anthracite  at  all,  according  to  the  Pennsylvania 
standard,  but  semi-bitumuinous,  or  some  other  coal  of 
higher  volatile  content. 


144  COAL 


Knowing  its  limited  amount  and  high  intrinsic  value, 
we  would  wonder  that  there  should  have  been  waste  and 
need  of  control  in  the  past. 

1.     Some  Causes  of  Excessive  Waste  in  the  Early  Mining 

(a)  Cheap  coal  land.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  Eigh- 
teenth Century,  land  was  cheap  everywhere.  The  land  in 
the  anthracite  field  that  was  bought  was  rated  at  its  value 
for  farming.  Land  near  what  is  now  Scranton,  in  the 
heart  of  the  Wyoming  basin,  underland  with  eleven  veins 
of  coal,  including  the  mammouth  vein  forty  to  fifty  feet 
thick, — was  bought  for  four  cents  an  acre.  The  Connecti- 
cut pioneers  paid  two  or  three  dollars  an  acre  in  the  region 
of  Wilkes-Barre,  because  it  was  more  fertile.  It  was  at 
least  forty  years  after  the  discovery  of  coal  before  it  com- 
menced to  add  any  value  to  coal  land.  Even^  if  the  owner 
had  known  that  his  land  was  coal  land,  it  would  have 
affected  him  but  little  as  the  coal  was  not  rated  as  of  much, 
if  any,  value. 

(b)  The  very  crude  method  of  mining  was  most  waste- 
ful. As  late  as  1812  the  coal  was  worked  by  openings  in 
the  outcrop,  and  the  coal  was  hoisted  in  buckets  by  rope 
and  windlass,  worked  by  hand  like  the  "Old  oaken  bucket 
that  hung  in  the  well."  It  was  eleven  years  after  when 
power  was  furnished  by  a  horse  working  a  gin.  The  open- 
ings could  not  be  driven  on  the  steep  slopes  more  than 
twenty-five  or  thirty  feet  without  the  water  coming  in,  so 
that  it  could  not  be  further  operated.  Then  it  was  aban- 
doned and  a  new  opening  made. 

(c)  Very  cheap  royalty  after  real  mining  commenced. 
An  example  is  given  of  a  lease  in  1814  by  the  Lehigh  Coal 
Company  to  White,  Hazard  and  Hanto  of  ten  thousand 
acres  for  twenty  years,  at  a  rental  of  an  ear  of  corn  per 
year,  if  demanded.  Of  course  the  Lehigh  Company  be- 
lieved that  coal  was  so  cheap  and  transportation  and  mar- 
keting the  coal  so  difficult,  that  it  was  worth  the  output 
for  twenty  years,  if  the  lessees  would  overcome  those  diffi- 
culties and  at  the  end  of  the  lease  turn  over  to  it  a  going 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP.  OR  CONTROL  145 


profitable  concern  serving  a  good  market.  Nevertheless, 
no  such  lease  can  do  other  than  invite  wasteful  mining  of 
"easy"  coal. 

(d)  Ignorance  of  the  real  value  of  "stone  coal."  The 
name  "stone  coal"  has  not  been  entirely  discarded,  though 
we  are  more  likely  to  use  the  name  "black  diamond." 

When  writers  undertake  to  tell  where  anthracite  was 
discovered  in  this  or  that  field,  they  would  better  say  when 
the  black  stones  were  found  to  be  coal.  It  is  probable  that 
blocks  of  the  anthracite  were  not  so  uncommon  in  these 
fields.  When  these  basins  were  formed,  the  shearing  of 
the  coal  from  the  tops  of  the  mountain  rims  surrounding 
them  left  the  strata  of  coal  exposed  on  the  slopes  of  the 
mountains.  From  these,  blocks  of  coal  would  be  broken  off 
and  washed  down  toward  the  streams  that  were  now  cut- 
ting their  channels  through  the  various  fields.  The  streams 
and  rivers  would  cut  through  the  veins  that  lay  near  the 
surface,  and  thus  expose  the  "black;  stone"  along  the  sides 
of  the  channels.  The  first  recorded  finding  of  anthracite 
seems  to  have  been  on  the  banks  of  the  Susquehanna. 

Though  this  discovery  was  made  in  1762,  no  report  of 
any  use  of  the  coal  is  given  until  seven  years  later,  so 
little  was  it  valued  as  a  fuel. 

The  discovery  made  in  the  Schuylkill  field  in  1770  that 
the  black  stone  would  burn  is  said  to  have  been  accidental. 
A  hunter  built  a  fire  on  some  rocks  and  went  to  sleep. 
When  he  awoke  he  found  the  rocks  a  glowing  mass  of  fire. 

(e)  Small  value  of  anthracite  as  a  commercial  product. 
Unless  the  coal  can  be  taken  to  a  market,  and  be  used 
there,  and  if  it  can  be  used  only  in  a  limited  local  market 
by  blacksmiths,  there  is  little  incentive  to  careful  recovery 
of  a  product  of  value  so  small.  Some  of  the  difficulties 
in  making  it  a  valuable  commercial  product  are  as  follows : 

(1)  Difficulty  in  introducing  anthracite  as  a  domestic 
fuel.  The  first  successful  attempt  to  burn  anthracite  was 
made  in  Wilkes-barre  in  1769,  by  a  blacksmith,  Obadiah 
Gore.  Six  years  later  a  cargo  of  Wyoming  coal  was  floated 
down  the  Susquehanna  River  to  Harrisburg  and  hauled  in 


146  COAL 


wagons  to  Carlisle  to  be  used  in  making  arms  for  the 
Revolutionary  Army.  While  the  use  of  anthracite  in  a 
forge  under  forced  draft  made  considerable  progress,  it 
was  necessary  for  the  producers  to  set  up  grates  in  public 
houses  to  show  that  it  would  burn  in  ordinary  grates.  The 
Lehigh  Coal  Mining  Company,  operating  in  the  Lehigh 
Field,  experienced  the  same  difficulty.  In  1803  six  arks 
of  coal  were  sent  down  the  Lehigh  River  for  Philadelphia 
and  great  difficulty  was  experienced  in  selling  the  two  arks 
that  escaped  wrecking  in  the  river.  The  City  of  Phila- 
delphia finally  bought  the  anthracite  for  use  at  their  water- 
work,  but  could  not  get  it  to  burn,  and  put  it  on  their 
walks  for  gravelling.  In  the  Schuylkill  field  as  late  as 
1812  George  Shomaker,  of  Pottsville,  hauled  nine  loads  to 
Philadelphia.  He  succeeded  in  selling  two,  and  had  to 
give  the  other  seven  away.  The  men  to  whom  he  gave  the 
coal  sought  to  arrest  him  as  a  swindler  who  was  trying  to 
sell  stone  for  coal.  Disheartening  as  was  this  experience, 
one  of  the  two  loads,  which  he  sold  for  cost  of  transporta- 
tion, produced  far  reaching  results.  Messrs.  White  and 
Hazard  bought  a  load.  White  spent  all  morning  trying 
to  burn  the  coal.  He  gave  it  up  in  disgust  and  shut  the 
furnace  door.  When  he  came  back  later  the  heat  was  so 
great  that  the  furnace  was  in  danger  o  fmelting.  The 
proof  that  the  coal  would  burn  was  complete,  and  White 
and  Hazard  afterward  engaged  extensively  in  anthracite 
mining. 

(2)  The  early  difficulty  in  getting  the  coal  to  market. 
From  the  southern  end  of  the  Wyoming  Field  shipment 
was  made  by  the  Susquehanna  River. 

They  shipped  their  coal  in  arks  holding  sixty  tons,  but  about 
one  ark;  out  of  every  three  either  sank  to  the  bottom  or  was 
grounded  on  the  rapids. 

Also,  as  it  was  not  possible  to  go  up  the  river,  they 
had  to  knock  their  arks  to  pieces  and  sell  the  wood  for 
fuel.  As  only  fine  timber  could  be  used  in  building  the 
arks,  and  only  firewood  prices  could  be  realized  in  market, 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  147 


it  was  expensive  to  build  an  ark  for  every  sixty  tons 
started  to  market,  one-third  of  them  to  be  wrecked  and 
two-thirds  sold  for  firewood.  From  the  northern  end  of 
the  Wyoming  field,  the  Wurtz  Brothers  tried  to  ship  their 
coal  from  the  Carbondale  Mines  by  way  of  the  Lacka waxen 
and  Delaware  Rivers  to  Philadelphia ;  but  the  cost  of  haul- 
ing from  their  mines  to  the  Lackawaxen,  together  with  the 
cost  and  danger  of  river  transportation,  was  too  great. 

The  Lehigh  field  experienced  the  same  difficulty  in  get- 
ting coal  to  market.  Out  of  six  arks  of  coal  sent  down 
the  Lehgih  River  by  the  Lehigh  Coal  Mining  Company  in 
1803,  only  two  reached  their  destination. 

(f)  Efforts  to  cure  these  difficulties  finally  bring  waste- 
ful competition.  Gradually  the  people  began  to  under- 
stand how  to  burn  the  coal,  and  a  ready  market  was  found 
in  the  cities. 

It  was  impossible  to  reach  the  markets  with  the  present 
means  of  transportation.  The  first  attempt  at  a  solution 
was  by  a  combination  of  gravity,  railroads,  canals,  and 
rivers. 

(1)  To  reach  New  York  from  the  northern  basin,  the 
combination  was  a  gravity  railroad  sixteen  miles  long  from 
Carbondale  to  Housedale,  a  canal  to  the  Hudson,  and  by 
the  Hudson  to  New  York. 

(2)  To  reach  Philadelphia  from  the  Lehigh  field  the 
combination  gravity  railroad  nine  miles  long,  a  canal  forty- 
six  miles  long,  a  canal  forty-six  miles  long  to  Easton,  and 
the  Delaware  River  to  Philadelphia.  A  curious  mistake 
was  made  in  the  last  link  of  that  combination.  The  Dela- 
ware locks  were  smaller  than  the  canal  locks,  and  coal 
for  Philadelphia  had  to  be  transshipped  at  Easton. 

(3)  To  reach  Philadelphia  from  the  Schuylkill  field 
there  is  but  one  link  in  the  transportation :  a  canal  one 
hundred  and  eight  miles  long,  from  Pottsville  to  Phila- 
delphia. 

These  lines  of  transportation,  which  were  based  wholly 
or  in  part  on  water  transportation  failed  at  the  most  criti- 
cal times.     Floods  washed  away  dams,  and  when  demand 


148  COAL 


was  greatest  in  winter,  freezing  water  cut  off  transporta- 
tion. Then  came  railroads ;  until  the  entire  field  was  cov- 
ered with  a  network  of  trunk  lines  and  switches. 

Now  that  transportation  was  equal  to  every  demand, 
and  that  difficulty  has  disappeared,  the  great  bane  of  the 
whole  coal  field  began  to  work  its  ruin, — overproduction 
and  reckless  price-cutting. 

At  that  time  it  cost  little  to  open  a  mine.  The  coal 
outcropped  along  the  slopes  of  the  rims  of  the  basins. 
The  railroads  that  were  then  sending  out  spurs  in  all 
directions  were  eager  for  freight,  and  encouraged  the 
opening  of  a  mine  wherever  it  gave  promise  of  furnish- 
ing more  freight.  Over  development  and  price-cutting 
brought  their  usual  crop  of  financial  distress.  To  add  to 
the  distress,  many  purely  speculative  companies  were  or- 
ganized. 

They  paid  high  wages,  opened  mines  wastefully,  over- 
developed the  industry,  claimed  large  profits  and  on  the  strength 
of  their  large  output  and  inflated  profits,  sold  out  just  when 
overproduction  was  beginning  to  bring  its  inevitable  result, 
ruinous  competition  and  with  it  waste. 

Operators  could  not  stop  producing,  as  overhead  and 
interest  charges  would  drive  them  into  bankruptcy;  but 
the  more  they  produced  the  worse.  Because  the  Civil 
War, — when  it  came, — caused  temporary  relief.  Anthra- 
cite prices  advanced  to  two  and  three  prices  of  normal 
times.  Profits  were  large.  Then  came  the  usual  result, — 
many  new  mines  were  opened  and  railroads  built  to  them. 

When  the  war  ended,  prices  collapsed  and  fell  to  half 
their  normal  rate. 

II.     Methods  Adopted  By  Miners,  Operators  and  Rail- 
roads to  Bring  Order  and  Stability  Out  of  This  Chaos 

(a)  Miners  voluntarily  reduce  production  until  demand 
catches  up.  The  miners  would  not  have  their  wages  re- 
duced to  meet  the  reduced  price  of  coal.    They  didn't  call 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  149 

it  a  strike  but  just  a  suspension  of  work  until  the  surplus 
was  used  up  and  a  demand  came  for  more  coal,  then  they 
resumed  work  at  the  old  wages. 

This  prevented  further  decline  in  the  price  of  coal,  but 
it  did  not  much  help  the  operators;  cost  of  idleness  had 
to  be  paid  and  no  profit.  Then  began  the  movements  that 
by  many  devious  ways  have  reached  the  present  monopoly 
by  the  railroads. 

(b)  Pool  of  Railroad  freight.  This  was  the  first 
experiment  in  control.  The  railroads  (1)  made  an  esti- 
mate of  the  amount  of  coal  that  would  be  needed  at  com- 
petitive points,  as  at  tidewater.  (2)  They  divided  this 
amount  among  themselves  according  to  the  amount  of  coal 
produced  on  each  road.  (3)  They  fixed  prices  at  these 
competitive  points  which  gave  operators  and  railroad^  a 
profit.  (4)  They  fixed  a  fine  of  ipi.50  for  every  ton  that 
any  railroad  shipped  beyond  its  quota.  This  pooling  ar- 
rangement worked  fairly  well  for  three  years,  at  the  end 
of  which  time  it  was  dissolved.  Then  followed  a  renewal 
of  former  conditions  of  overproduction  and  waste. 

Prices  fell  very  low ;  four  railroads  suspended  divi- 
dends, and  the  others  paid  small  dividends.  For  twenty- 
five  years,  up  to  1898,  the  anthracite  field  was  the  scene 
of  successive  pools,  "gentlemen's  agreements,"  followed 
by  dissolutions,  disaster,  and  waste.  Operators  saw  their 
coal  wasted  and  themselves  in  a  constant  state  of  incipient 
bankruptcy.  The  railroads  saw  the  freight  upon  which 
their  life  depended  being  wasted  and  their  patrons  im- 
poverished. These  temporary  expedients  have  proved  in- 
efficient; some  radical  change  must  be  made. 

(c)  Purchase  of  coal  lands  by  the  railroad  combine. 
It  would  do  the  railroads  no  good  to  own  coal  land,  if 
they  cannot  mine  and  sell  the  coal. 

The  present  Constitution  of  Pennsylvania  prohibits  a 
railroad  from  mining  and  selling  coal,  except  where  its 
charter  granting  it  that  right  antedates  the  Constitution. 


150  COAL 


The  Lackawanna  and  Western  is  the  only  railroad  in 
that  field  that  could  own  and  mine  its  own  coal,  since  its 
charter  granting  that  privilege  antedates  the  Constitution. 

The  only  way  open  to  the  other  railroads  was  to  do  by 
indirection  what  they  could  not  do  directly.  That  indirect 
way  was  to  own  in  combination  a  corporation  with  charter 
rights  broad  enough  to  enable  the  roads  through  it  to  buy 
land,  mine  coal,  and  market  it.  The  history  of  the  way 
in  which  that  object  was  accomplished  is  very  interesting 
but  it  would  carry  us  too  far  from  our  present  purpose. 
A  most  interesting  account  of  the  whole  transaction  is  given 
by  Elliot  Jones  in  "The  Anthracite  Coal  Combination." 
the  y  formed  the  Temple  Iron  Company,  whose  amended 
charter  gave  the  right 

to  purchase,  lease,  hold,  mortgage  real  estate  and  mining 
rights,  prove  and  open  mines,  prepare  and  transport  coal  to 
market,  and  dispose  of  the  same,  and  do  all  such  acts  and 
things  as  a  successful  and  consistent  prosecution  of  said  busi- 
ness may  require. 

By  use  of  this  company  they  gradually  bought  coal  land 
and  mines  until  they  owned  ninety-three  per  cent  of  the 
anthracite  field. 

(d)  Make  with  independent  operators  a  perpetual  con- 
tract to  buy  all  their  output  at  a  fixed  percentage  of  the 
selling  price. 

This  is  what  is  generally  called  the  "sixty-five"  per 
cent  contract,  because  all  coal  above  a  certain  size  called 
"pea"  coal  is  to  be  paid  for  at  sixty-five  per  cent  of  its 
selling  price  near  New  York,  though  smaller  coal  carries 
a  less  percentage. 

The  principal  terms  of  the  contracts  are  as  follows: 

(1)  The  seller  sells  and  agrees  to  deliver  on  cars  to  the 
buyer  all  the  anthracite  coal  hereafter  mined  from  any  of  its 
mines  now  opened  or  hereafter  opened  or  operated. 

This  Section  is  like  the  proposed  contract  with  the 
selling  agencies  in  the  bituminous  fields. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  151 


(2)  Shipments  to  be  made  from  time  to  time  as  called  for 
by  the  buyer.  The  buyer  to  arrange  to  take  coal,  as  nearly  as 
possible,  in  equal  daily  quantities.  To  try  to  find  buyers  so 
that  each  mine  shall  have  as  many  days  work  as  other  mines 
similarly    situated. 

This  Section  limits  output  to  demand,  aims  to  cure  the 
industry  of  its  spasmodic  production,  and  to  spread  the 
production  over  the  entire  field. 

(3)  The  buyer  agrees  not  to  discriminate  in  favor  of  one 
mine  over  the  other,  but  shall  order  monthly  a  just  propor- 
tion from  each,  of  the  entire  quantity  agreed  upon  by  the  buyer. 

Our  proposed  selling  agency  in  the  bituminous  field  is 
required  to  do  like  justice  to  each  mine. 

The  next  Section  is  the  sixty-five  per  cent  Section,  and 
is  the  price  controlling  contract.  It  appears,  therefore, 
that  the  railroads,  (a)  have  a  monopoly  of  the  anthracite 
mining  industry,  (b)  In  doing  indirectly  what,  if  done 
directly,  is  illegal,  mining  and  selling  coal  through  the 
mining  companies  whose  stock  they  own  or  control  or 
through  the  holding  companies  which  nominally  own  both 
the  roads  and  their  affiliated  mines,  (c)  They  limit  and 
control  output.  (A  certain  Mayor  some  time  ago  wrote  to 
the  President  and  charged  that  anthracite  mines  were  not 
operating  to  capacity,  and  asked  for  an  investigation  to  see 
if  they  could  not  be  compelled  to  operate  full  time.  He 
is  representative  of  the  many  who  want  all  our  resources 
used  up  as  fast  as  possible  whether  they  are  demanded  for 
economical  use  or  not.)  (d)  They  regulate  and  fix  prices. 
No  great  industry,  like  the  anthracite  mining,  can  con- 
tinue to  live  if  it  does  not  return  a  fair  compensation  to 
producer  and  a  fair  wage  to  labor.  The  cut-throat  prices 
that  ruled  at  times  in  this  field  ruined  operators,  made  them 
unable  to  pay  decent  wages  to  labor,  did  not,  in  the  long 
run,  benefit  consumer,  and  wasted  the  coal. 

Any  fair-minded  man,  after  comparing  the  past  with 
the  present  in  the  anthracite  field  will  agree  that  railroad 
control  has  been  its  salvation. 


152  COAL 


(1)  The  railroads  are  benefited  both  in  the  stability 
of  freight  conditions,  and  in  the  increased  life  of  the  in- 
dustry and  longer  continuance  of  their  profit  from  freight. 

(2)  The  independent  companies  are  benefitted,  since 
they  have  a  well-regulated  production,  a  fair  price  for 
their  coal,  are  saved  the  cost  of  a  selling  agency,  and  have 
their  coal  marketed  without  worry. 

(3)  The  public  is  protected.  The  railroads  have  their 
coal  mined  carefully  and  skillfully,  and  thus  conserve  it. 
The  independent  operators  mine  their  coal  economically 
without  waste ;  they  get  a  price  for  their  coal  that  enables 
them  now  to  take  out  all  the  coal  which  can  be  mined  at 
all.  The  consumer  does  not  pay  on  the  average  as  much 
as  he  would  have  to  pay  in  an  unstable  market. 

Mining  anthracite  coal  now  is  a  science.  Only  men 
skilled  in  meeting  the  special  conditions  here  can  do  the 
work  at  all.  Only  strong  companies  under  most  capable 
men  can  afford  to  mine  in  this  field.  Are  these  powerful 
companies  doing  all  that  can  be  done  to  conserve  coal? 

The  three  causes  of  waste  which  were  mentioned  in 
connection  with  mining  in  the  bituminous  fields  and  which 
were  present  in  the  anthracite  field  in  the  beginning  are 
absent  now: 

(1)  The  coal  land  is  too  valuable  to  be  wasted.  "We 
are  mining  coal  almost  regardless  of  cost,"  says  one  Super- 
intendent. 

(2)  The  operating  companies  are  strong  financially, 
and  are  not  forced  to  mine  easy  coal  to  keep  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  Receiver. 

(3)  By  agreement  to  limit  output,  prices  are  kept 
at  a  high  enough  rate  to  justify  economical  methods'  in  the 
mine. 

The  following  are  some  of  the  difficulties  in  anthracite 
mining  and  the  various  sources  of  cost,  which  have  to  be 
met: 

(1)  The  expense  of  sinking  and  equipping  a  modern 
mine.  Most  of  the  field  can  be  worked  from  mines  al- 
ready sunk,  but  when  a  shaft  has  to  be  sunfc,  it  has  now 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  153 

to  be  located  in  the  most  difficult  and  hazardous  site.  The 
difficulty  encountered  in  sinking  a  shaft  now  is  illustrated 
by  the  experience  of  a  company  which  sunk  a  shaft  a-  few 
years  ago  in  the  flat  lands  of  the  Susquehanna  River,  which 
are  only  a  few  feet  above  water  level  and  are  overflowed 
every  year.  The  borings  showed  that  <they  -must  go 
through  sand,  gravel,  and  quicksand.  After  going  a  little 
below  the  surface  they  found  that  water  stood  in  the 
shaft  at  the  river  level,  and  that  water  coming  in  through 
the  gravel  and  sand  could  only  be  kept  out  by  a  concrete 
lining  seven  feet  in  thickness  and  one  thousand  feet  deep. 
After  the  coal  is  reached,  the  expense  is  by  no  means  ended. 
Millions  of  dollars  are  now  needed  to  reach  the  lower 
veins,  where  thousands  were  enough  to  reach  the  shallow 
veins  that  are  now  exhausted. 

(2)  The  difficulty  and  expense  of  mining  the  thin 
veins.  Thin  veins,  which  would  not  have  been  touched 
in  the  early  mining,  are  now  being  mined.  In  veins  two- 
and-a-half  feet  thick  the  gangways  and  main  haulage- ways 
have  to  be  made  of  standard  height  and  width.  This 
necessitates  the  mining  of  large  amount  of  rock  and  tak- 
ing it  up  out  of  the  mine.  Rock  mining  is  very  expensive. 
About  thirty  per  cent  of  the  coal  that  is  being  mined  in 
the  northern  field  is  in  veins  two-and-one-half  feet  thick. 
Another  large  increase  in  the  cost  of  mining  thin  veins 
is  in  the  large  labor  cost.  The  output  from  a  thin  vein 
is  much  less  in  a  day  than  from  a  thick  vein.  The  miners 
have  to  be  paid  more  per  ton.  Operators  can  only  afford 
to  mine  such  veins  at  all  by  mining  at  the  same  time 
thicker  veins  and  averaging  the  cost. 

It  is  mine  the  thin  vein  now  or  never!  They  cannot 
afford  to  come  back  after  the  thick  veins  are  mined  and 
take  the  thin  veins ;  besides,  they  will  probably  be  wrecked 
in  mining  the  thick  veins  alone. 

Mr.   Dorrance,   Superintendent   of   the   Hudson   Coal 
Company,  said: 


154  COAL 


I  went  into  a  mine  near  Scranton  to  look  it  over  with  ref- 
erence to  spending  some  money  to  clean  and  prepare  the  coal 
from  that  mine.  There  is  nothing  left  in  that  mine  except  one 
vein  of  coal,  and  we  walked  the  whole  morning,  looking  at  the 
quality  of  that  vein.  Out  of  the  six  feet  which  would  have 
to  be  mined,  there  was  a  foot  and  a  half  of  coal.  Out  of  the 
six  feet  which  had  to  be  mined,  less  than  twenty  per  cent 
was  coal  which  could  be  sent  to  market.  The  cost  of  pro- 
duction is  five  times  what  it  would  be  if  the  vein  were  all  coal. 

(3)  Taking  care  of  the  water  in  the  mines.  To  pump 
the  water  from  the  mines,  nine  hundred  powerful  pumps 
are  at  work,  some  of  them  costing  $30,000.00.  They  are 
capable  of  hoisting  five  hundred  billion  gallons  a  year.  In 
addition  to  the  pumps,  some  of  the  mines  use  immense 
tanks  holding  from  two  thousand  to  three  thousand  gallons 
each,  which  may  be  hoisted  every  forty  seconds.  After 
a  vein  is  exhausted,  the  water  originating  in  it  must  be 
pumped  out  continuously,  because  it  finds  its  way  to  the 
lower  veins  that  are  being  worked,  or  may  Dreak  through 
and  swamp  veins  on  the  same  level.  For  every  ton  of 
coal,  now  mined,  on  the  average  thirteen  and  a  half  tons 
of  water  must  be  hoisted.  In  times  of  heavy  water  from 
melting  snow  or  flood,  mining  is  suspended,  and  all  the 
steam-generating  capacity  is  used  on  water  alone.  Suffi- 
cient horsepower  is  used  at  the  anthracite  mines  to  drive 
at  full  speed  continuously  all  the  battleships  of  our  navy. 
One-eighth  of  all  the  coal  mined  is  used  up  to  make  steam. 
In  addition  to  the  pumps,  the  drainage  pipes  that  bring  the 
water  to  the  pumps  are  an  enormous  expense,  not  only 
first  cost  but  cost  of  renewal,  since  they  are  constantly 
being  eaten  up  by  the  sulphur  in  the  water. 

(4)  Taking  care  of  the  water  after  it  is  out  of  the 
mine.  It  must  not  pollute  watersheds,  streams,  or  rivers. 
Settling  tanks  must  be  provided  so  as  to  reduce  the  sedi- 
ment. Enough  water  has  to  be  taken  care  of  in  a  year 
to  fill  a  river  one  hundred  feet  wide,  ten  feet  deep,  and 
reaching  from  New  York  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
back. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP.OR  CONTROL  155 

(5)  Cost  of  props  and  supports  for  the  roof.  Timber 
near  the  mines  is  exhausted  so  that  timber  has  to  be 
brought  from  the  South.  It  costs  at  least  $10,000,000  a 
year  to  buy  and  haul  the  timber,  and  $20,000,000  to  put 
it  in  place.  They  are  now  putting  in  steel  props  that  cost 
four  times  as  much  as  wood.  Tunnels  long  enough  to 
reach  through  the  earth  have  to  be  kept  propped,  to  keep 
haulage  ways  and  air  ducts  open,  and  to  protect  the  sur- 
face from  subsidence.  Even  at  that,  the  problem  of  sur- 
face support  is  now  a  very  serious  one.  Where  the 
"mammoth"  vein,  40  to  60  feet  in  thickness  lay  near  the 
surface  and  has  been  removed,  it  has  been  impossible  to 
sustain  the  surface.  In  Scranton,  schoolhouses  and  other 
buildings  have  collapsed.  The  only  remedy  seems  to  be 
to  flush  the  mine  full  of  culm,  or  sand,  at  a  cost  of  about 
$2,000  an  acre. 

If  government  control  had  been  properly  exercised,  two 
things  would  have  been  in  force.  First,  pillars  in  the 
different  veins  would  have  been  columnized, — that  is,  the 
pillars  and  props  in  the  lower  veins  would  have  been  placed 
directly  under  those  above,  which  they  were  not.  Second, 
the  city  of  Scranton  would  have  been  located  on  one  side 
of  the  coal  field  instead  of  on  it.  Such  location  is  said 
to  be  equally  adapted  for  a  city. 

(6)  Supplying  water  for  the  boilers.  The  water  from 
the  mine  cannot  be  used  in  the  boilers  on  account  of  the 
impurities,  which  would  destroy  them.  The  pure  water 
has  in  many  cases  to  be  brought  long  distances  at  great 
expense. 

(7)  Ventilating  the  mines.  Air  has  to  be  carried 
through  all  parts  of  the  mine,  even  the  parts  which  have 
been  exhausted,  to  sweep  out  the  gases  and  to  supply  a 
sufficient  quantity  for  every  living  being  in  the  mine.  The 
mine  law  requires  that  the  anthracite  miner  be  furnished 
with  two  hundred  cubic  feet  of  fresh  air  per  minute.  In 
order  that  no  part  of  the  mine  may  become  charged  with 
gas,  double  that  amount  is  often  furnished.  In  order  to 
provide  against  accident  and  to  keep  the  current  moving 


156  COAL 


while  repairs  are  being  made,  triplicate  systems  of  fans 
are  installed.  Two  fans  may  thus  become  disabled,  and 
ventilation  be  kept  up  by  the  third. 

(8)  Fighting  mine  fires.  The  Lehigh  Coal  and  Navi- 
gation Company  spent  during  six  years  $460,000  fighting 
fires.  In  one  mine  a  concrete  dam  eighty  feet  long,  forty- 
five  feet  high,  and  eight  feet  thick  was  built,  in  order  to 
flood  the  fire  regions. 

(9)  Manufacture  of  the  coal  after  it  reaches  the  sur- 
face. The  coal  at  the  surface  is  by  no  means  fit  for  mar- 
ket. It  is  a  mixture  of  coal,  bone  coal,  and  slate.  A 
writer  says  of  one  mine : 

Two  boxes  of  straight  impurities  were  hoisted  from  the 
mine  for  every  box  of  coal.  Even  of  the  coal  that  was  dumped 
forty-eight  per  cent  was  eliminated  by  the  breaker  as  slate 
and  refuse.  The  coal  finally  reclaimed  was  only  one-sixth  of 
the  material  that  was  hoisted  out  of  the  shaft.  The  pile  of 
"gobs"  from  the  mine  was  simply  tremendous.  It  extended  for 
several  thousand  feet  to  the  height  of  three  hundred  to  four 
hundred  feet,  and  was  several  hundred  feet  broad. 

Fully  one-fifth  of  the  cost  of  mining  and  preparing  this 
coal  for  market  comes  after  it  is  above  ground.  For  the 
"manufacture"  of  the  coal  in  the  anthracite  region  there 
are  about  three  hundred  breakers.  These  breakers  crush 
the  coal  into  the  various  sizes  that  are  put  upon  the  mar- 
ket, and  in  course  of  the  breaking  remove  the  impurities 
by  washing,  or  picking,  or  screening  until  it  will  pass  the 
inspector.  Each  size  of  coal  is  inspected,  to  see  if  it  has 
more  than  the  prescribed  percentage  of  slate.  If  it  has, 
it  must  be  sent  back  to  the  breaker  and  recleaned.  These 
breakers  cost  from  $300,000  to  $500,000  each.  The  life 
of  a  wooden  breaker  is  about  eight  years;  the  iron  posts 
may  be  eaten  up  by  the  sulphur  in  a  year. 

(10)  Cost  of  workmen's  compensation.  Anthracite 
mining  is  very  hazardous.  Men  may  be  caugnt  in  the  rim 
of  a  vein  on  a  steep  slope.  Reclaiming  pillars  anywhere 
means  many  falls  of  roof,  but  on  the  steep  slopes  it  is 
doubly   dangerous.     Men,   too,   become   careless   and   take 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  157 


chances;  eighty  per  cent  of  the  accidents  are  due  to  care- 
lessness or  disobedience  of  direction.  One  company,  which 
mines  eight  millions  tons  a  year,  estimates  its  compensa- 
tion insurance  cost  at  $500,000  or  1^5  to  2u  cents  a  ton 
of  coal  mined. 

(11)  Cost  of  modern  convenience  about  a  mine. 
Above  ground :  wash-houses,  dwelling  houses,  probably  of 
brick  or  cement,  with  hot  and  cold  water,  bath  rooms,  and 
electric  lighting.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  hear  speakers 
berate  operators  for  the  hovels  they  rent  to  their  men  at 
a  high  rate,  and  condemn  the  cesspools  and  unsanitary 
surroundings  that  endanger  life  and  health.  These  violent 
speakers  have  probably  never  visited  a  modern  anthracite 
mine,  or  else  do  not  care  to  tell  the  truth. 

In  the  mine  is  the  greatest  change  from  the  olden  times. 
Fire-proofing,  haulage  ways,  fire  engines,  hospitals  and  ap- 
pliances for  first  aid,  and  men  trained  to  use  them.  Tele- 
phones are  everywhere  for  call ;  one  company  has  fourteen 
hundred  of  them. 

The  syndicalist  who  proposed  to  operate  these  mines 
needs  gird  himself  to  do  a  big  man's  job. 

The  accompanying  map  shows  the  way  the  veins  lie 
in  most  of  the  mines,  especially  in  the  Southern  field. 

Life  of  the  Anthracite  Field 

Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  estimate  the  orig- 
inal content  of  the  anthracite  field  and  the  number  of  years 
until  the  coal  will  be  exhausted. 

The  method  of  making  the  estimate  is  to  take  each  of 
tuc  various  veins  and  compute  the  amount  of  coal  it  orig- 
inally contained,  then  add  the  results. 

The  data  for  the  computation  of  the  content  of  each 
wi  are  average  thickness  of  the  vein  and  its  area. 

The  average  thickness  of  a  vein  is  found  by  taking  the 
U*.  :kness  of  that  vein  in  all  the  bore  holes,  shafts,  and 
tunnels  that  cut  it,  and  assuming  that  the  average  found 
irum  these  is  the  thickness  over  its  entire  area.     The  area 


l:>3  COAL 


ib  found  by  finding  the  limits  of  the  vein  at  the  outcrop, 
or  at  the  edges  of  it,  as  shown  by  borings  and  shafts. 

One  of  the  most  complete  estimates  is  that  made  by 
J.  P.  Lesley  in  1893.  He  estimated  the  original  content 
of  the  Northern  basin  to  be  5,700,000,000  tons;  Eastern 
Middle,  600,000,000  tons ;  Western  Middle,  4,000,000,000 ; 
Southern,  9,200,000,000,  or  a  total  of  19,500,000,000  tons. 

He  estimated  that,  counting  that  one  and  a  half  tons 
had  been  lost  for  every  ton  produced,  the  depletion  up 
to  1893  had  been  2,255,000,000  tons,  leaving  in  the  ground 
17,245,000,000  tons.  The  output  since  that  time  has  been 
1,950,000,000  tons,  so  that  the  depletion  has  been  about 
4,000,000,000  tons,  leaving  now  13,245,000,000  tons  in  the 
ground.  Lesley  assumed  that  forty  per  cent  would  be 
recovered  from  his  estimated  amount.  If  we  assume  fifty 
per  cent  recovery,  the. possible  future  production  will  be 
6,622,500,000  tons. 

The  annual  production  has  been  more  than  80,000,000 
tons  in  the  last  few  years.  Assuming  that  rate  for  the 
future,  the  field  would  be  exhausted  in  eighty-three  years. 
It  seems  that  the  peak  of  the  production  has  been  reached, 
and  the  output  will  soon  gradually  decline.  The  decreased 
annual  output  will  lengthen  the  life  of  the  field,  but  can- 
not increase  the  ultimate  quantity  of  the  coal.  Every 
ton  of  annual  anthracite  decrease  will  throw  that  much 
greater  demand  upon  the  bituminous  fields. 

The  railroad  mines  are  conserving  their  coal  by  tak- 
ing about  twenty  per  cent  of  the  output  from  the  inde- 
pendent mines.  At  that  rate  the  independent  mines  will  be 
exhausted  in  about  fifteen  years.  One  large  railroad  com- 
pany estimates  that  it  has  a  supply  for  one  hundred  and 
sixty-three  years.  If  so,  it  will  be  mining  its  output  of 
8,000,000  tons  a  year  long  after  other  mines  are  worked 
out. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

PROPER  USE  OF  COAL  AFTER  IT  IS  MINED 

Proper  Use  of  Coal  After  It  Is  Mined— Difficulty  Arising 
from  Great  Diversity  of  Use— Burning  Raw  Coal  Wasteful- 
Feed  the  Furnace— Training  Firemen  to  Save  Coal— Burn  Coal 
Before  Burning  It— Beehive  Oven  Saves  Only  Coke  in  General 
—Gas  Producer,  Turns  All  the  Coal  Into  Gas— Advantages  of 
Gas  in  Furnace — Advantages  in  Engines — Byproduct  Ovens, 
Save  Coke,  Gas  and  Byproducts — Two  Ways  of  Treating  the 
Gas :  Coaling  and  Heating,  Cooling  Only  in  Feld  Process- 
Use  of  Byproducts :  Fertilizer,  Motor  Power,  Dyes,  Drugs — 
Effect  on  Labor — Methods  of  Increasing  Efficient  Uses  of  Coal. 

It  seems  a  hopeless  task  to  do  anything  in  a  concerted, 
helpful  way  to  conserve  coal  in  the  vast  field  of  coal  con- 
sumption. It  certainly  is  hopeless,  if  we  do  not  mix  our 
fine  theory  with  large  practical  common  sense.  In  this 
great  diversified  coal  industry  scattered  over  vast  areas, 
in  rural  districts  and  urban  districts,  near  railroads  and 
remote  from  them,  no  single  plan  can  be  applied.  But  if 
there  are  abuses  in  the  use  of  coal,  or  wasteful  ways  that 
ought  to  be  remedied,  and  a  plan  can  be  devised  and  car- 
ried into  effect  that  corrects  those  abuses  even  in  a  limited 
field,  it  is  worth  while.  In  time  changing  conditions  may 
render  it  possible  in  other  fields.  The  whole  people,  as 
we  have  shown,  have  an  interest  in  conserving  the  coal 
supply.  To  its  full  extent,  lack  of  scientific  use  of  coal  in 
consumption  defeats  the  results  of  conservation  in  pro- 
duction. It  is  not  the  design  of  proper  conservation  to 
limit  the  output  of  consumption  in  the  way  of  comfort  to 
the  domestic  user  and  profit  to  the  industrial  user,  hence 
the  more  coal  it  takes  to  do  the  same  work  the  greater 
the  drain  on  the  supply. 

Burning  of  "Raw  Coal" 

Most  users  of  a  small  amount  of  coal  have  given  little 
thought  to  the  proper  burning  of  their  fuel.     In  the  home, 

159    . 


160  COAL 


if  the  number  of  fires  do  not  heat  the  house  properly  and 
cook  the  food  well,  more  stoves  are  put  up  and  more  coal 
is  piled  on.  In  the  majority  of  small  factories  little  thought 
is  given  to  the  efficiency  of  the  furnace  and  boiler.  Coal 
has  been  so  cheap  that  the  burning  of  a  few  bushels  more 
or  less  makes  little  difference  in  the  manufactures'  cost 
account.  Besides,  they  do  not  know  whether  their  fur- 
naces are  properly  made  or  whether  they  are  adapted  to 
the  kind  of  fuel  they  are  using.  They  do  not  know  how 
to  test  them,  and  either  have  no  faith  in  experts  or  do  not 
want  to  incur  the  expense  of  calling  in  a  specialist.  The 
result  has  been  that  in  some  cases  not  more  than  five  or 
ten  per  cent  of  the  heat  value  in  the  coal  has  been  used 
productively. 

Matters,  on  the  whole,  however,  have  been  improving. 
Even  with  coal  at  the  low  price  at  which  it  has  been 
bought  in  the  past,  companies  that  use  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  tons  in  a  year  have  come  to  see  that  it  is  a 
serious  loss  to  waste  a  large  percentage  of  the  coal.  So, 
they  have  installed  automatic  stokers,  employed  skillful 
managers,  and  employed  specialists  to  advise  them  how  to 
adapt  their  equipment  to  the  coal  and  how  to  use  the  coal 
with  greater  efficiency.  Some  coal  companies  employ  ex- 
pert fuel  engineers,  who  are  ready  to  go  to  the  different 
plants  that  use  their  coal  and  show  the  owners  how  to 
equip  and  use  their  plant  that  is  burning  the  special  kind 
of  coal  they  mine.  Now,  since  coal  has  become  dearer 
and  will  continue  to  grow  dearer,  the  incentive  to  more 
efficient  use  of  coal  will  grow  stronger,  and  conservation 
will  be  promoted. 

The  Bureau  of  Mines  has  taken  a  step  that  is  good 
so  far  as  it  goes.  A  Bulletin  has  been  issued  explaining 
as  far  as  possible  the  best  way  to  burn  coal  in  furnaces. 
It  shows  that  we,  as  a  nation,  are  becoming  alive  to  the 
interest  the  whole  people  have  in  this  form  of  conserva- 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  161 


tion.  Some  who  get  the  Bulletin  read  it,  and  are  inter- 
ested, may  follow  its  suggestions.  A  second  step  is  neces- 
sary,, as  I  shall  suggest  later. 

Feeding  The  Coal  To  The  Furnace  And  Grate 

Hand  firing  by  shoveling  the  coal  into  the  furnace  is 
the  original  way  of  firing,  and  even  yet  it  is  the  general 
way.  Efforts  to  lessen  the  smoke  menace  and  waste  led 
to  training  the  fireman  to  become  a  scientific  expert. 
Schools  for  firemen  are  established  by  some  railroads, 
where  expert  instructors  are  employed.  Automatic  stok- 
ers have  reduced  coal  and  labor  costs,  made  the  use  of  finer 
coal  possible,  and  made  it  easier  to  control  the  rate  and 
constancy  of  firing.  Powdered  coal  has  been  used  in  some 
furnaces,  promoting  complete  combustion,  and  saving  labor 
and  fuel. 

All  burning  of  raw  coal  for  its  heat  content  only  is 
wasteful.  So  nearly  is  that  statement  true  universally  that 
its  use  is  warranted.  We  have  not  been  able  to  use  economi- 
cally one  hundred  per  cent  of  the  energy  content  of  coal, 
and  probably  never  will.  Every  pound  of  coal  has  just 
a  certain  amount  of  heat  energy  locked  up  in  it.  No  de- 
vice can  be  invented  by  which  more  energy  can  be  ex- 
tracted than  that  certain  content.  All  we  can  do  is  to  em- 
ploy all  possible  means  by  which  we  can  come  as  near  as 
we  may  to  getting  out  and  using  that  certain  content  of 
value.  This  we  are  in  duty  bound  to  do  and  to  compel 
others  to  do  with  the  coal,  they  use. 

When  we  speak  of  the  energy  content  of  coal,  of  course, 
we  only  speak  of  the  energy  and  value  that  are  shown  by 
our  chemical  and  physical  tests.  Sometime  someone  may 
find  the  key  that  will  unlock  the  great  energy  bound  up 
in  the  atoms  and  teach  how  to  use  it.  When  that  time 
comes,  the  duty  to  use  it  economically  will  lie  upon  the 
users  of  this  great  energy,  just  as  it  lies  upon  us  to  use 
economically  our  limited  supply  of  energy.     Abundance  is 


162  COAL 


no  excuse  for  waste.  It  may  well  be,  however,  that  poster- 
ity may  have  new  uses  for  energy  of  which  we  do  not  now 
dream. 

Burn  Coal  Before  Burning 

This  looks  like  the  saying  of  a  jester,  or  an  idiot.  But 
it  is  literally  true  that  double-burning  is  the  best  way  to 
burn  coal.  I  reserve  the  full  description  of  the  equipment 
and  method  of  operation  till  later,  and  only  treat  here  the 
three  ways  of  double-burning  that  we  may  pass  upon  their 
use  and  value  and  hence  the  need,  or  the  opposite, — for 
Government  control  or  encouragement  and  help.  The 
three  ways  are : 

1.  Bee-hive  coke  oven.  The  first  burning  in  this  case 
is  for  the  sole  purpose  of  making  coke.  All  the  volatile 
content  of  the  coal  is  distilled  is  ordinarily  allowed  to 
escape  directly  into  the  air.  The  residue  is.  carbon,  and 
of  course  the  ash  of  the  coal.  The  carbon  or  coke  is  very 
valuable,  especially  for  use  in  metallurgy.  If  there  were 
no  other  way  of  melting  iron  serving  the  other  purposes 
to  vwhich  bee-hive  coke  is  put,  and  no  other  way  of 
getting  as  good  coke, — much  as  we  deplore  the  waste  of  the 
very  valuable  products  that  are  sent  into  the  air, — we 
might  accept  it  as  one  of  the  necessary  evils,  the  less  of 
two  evils.  But  there  are  other  ways  that  accomplish  the 
same  result  and  save  the  valuable  products  now  being 
wasted.  Some  companies  are  now  carrying  the  heated 
gases  to  their  heating  equipment,  and  are  thus  becoming 
coke  and  gas  companies  by  saving  the  volatile  content  of 
the  coal. 

2.  Gas  producers.  These  are  indeed  properly  named 
"gas  producers."  In  the  bee-hive  oven  the  object  is  to 
get  clear  of  all  gas  and  leave  only  coke.  Here  the  whole 
object  is  to  turn  all  the  coal  into  gas.  The  only  residue 
is  the  ash,  which  cannot  be  turned  into  gas.  If  the  gas 
producer  is  working  well,  all  coal  put  in  it  is  changed  into 
useful  gas.     If  an  ordinary  coal  fi*"e  is  working  well,  it 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  163 


burns  all  the  coal  put  into  it  into  useless  gas.  The  gas  that 
goes  up  the  chimney  from  a  properly  burning  grate  should 
be  as  nearly  as  possible  burned-out  or  satisfied  gas,  such 
as  carbon  dioxide.  The  gas  that  comes  out  of  the  pipe 
in  a  gas  producer  must  be  as  nearly  as  possible  unburned 
or  unsatisfied  gas,  such  as  carbon  monoxide,  which  is  un- 
satisfied until  it  burns,  that  is  gets  for  each  molecule  of 
CO  another  molecule  of  oxygen  and  becomes  C02  when 
it  is  satisfied,  and  will  burn  no  more;  and  hydrogen  which 
is  unsatisfied  until  it  gets  oxygen  to  turn  it  to  water  vapor. 
Suppose,  now,  that  the  gas-producer  oven  has  done 
its  work  of  turning  the  coal  into  gas,  the  gas  comes  out  of 
the  oven  ready  to  be  used.  There  are,  in  general,  two 
ways  in  either  of  which  it  may  be  used.  It  may  be 
piped  directly  to  the  furnace  to  be  burned  to  furnish  the 
heat  for  the  same  purposes  for  which  raw  coal  is  usually 
employed.  If  used  in  this  way  nothing  it  taken  out  of  the 
gas.     It  is  carried  to  the  furnace  hot  and  tarry. 

Advantages  of  the  Use  of  Producer  Gas  Over  Raw  Coal 
in  Direct  Burning  in  the  Furance 

1.  Gas  may  be  burned  in  the  furnace  without  smoke. 
In  a  furnace  fired  with  coal  the  hydro-carbon  vapors  are 
disengaged  as  soon  as  the  fire  is  started  and  are  not  burned 
but  go  up  the  chimney,  and  not  only  make  objectionable 
smoke  but  carry  the  heat  value  of  the  hydro-carbons  away 
unused.  2.  With  gas  there  is  less  waste  of  heat  up  the 
chimney  in  another  way.  If  the  fuel  on  the  grate  is  deep 
and  the  air  draught  not  strong,  the  fuel  is  not  all  burned 
completely  but  a  considerable  quantity  of  carbon  monoxide 
is  formed,  which  goes  up  the  chimney  unburnt  and  is 
wasted.  If  the  fuel  bed  is  shallow  and  a  sufficiently  strong 
draught  to  produce  complete  combustion,  there  must  be 
about  three  times  as  much  air  introduced  as  can  be  chemi- 
cally united  with  the  fuel.     Therefore,  a  large  amount  of 


164  COAL 


nitrogen  and  the  oxygen  which  cannot  unite  with  carbon 
must  be  heated  uselessly,  and  thus  carry  away  several 
times  as  much  heat  as  a  like  burning  of  gas  would. 

In  some  high  temperature  furnaces  fired  with  solid  fuel, 
it  is  estimated  that  only  five  to  ten  per  cent  of  the  heat  value 
of  the  fuel  is  actually  used.  In  most  cases  the  heat  losses  by 
direct  firing  may  be  four  or  five  times  as  great  as  by  gas 
firing.  ...  On  the  average  one  ton  of  coal  in  the  gas  pro- 
ducer will  develop  as  much  energy  as  two  and  a  half  tons 
in  the  ordinary  steam  plant. 

Heating  Uses  for  Which  Gas  Is  Superior  to  Coal 

First.  Use  in  furnaces  which  require  a  uniform  heat 
for  a  heat  regulated  in  any  special  way.  Valves  may  be 
set  to  furnish  gas  in  uniform  quantity  for  constant  heat, 
or  be  opened  and  closed  at  will  for  any  required  variation 
in  heat. 

Second.  Use  in  deoxodizing  metals.  By  reducing  the 
supply  of  air  in  the  gas,  the  gas  may  not  contain  enough 
oxygen  for  complete  combustion.  Now,  let  it  come  in 
contact  with  oxidized  metal,  such  as  bars  of  rusted  iron, 
it  attacks  the  iron  oxide  and  takes  away  the  oxygen  which 
had  combined  with  the  surface  iron  and  cleans  the  sur- 
face. 

Third.  Uses  where  the  material  must  be  heated  grad- 
ually and  then  cooled  gradually.  The  following  quotation 
from  Dawson  and  Harters  "Producer  Gas"  will  illustrate 
this  point : 

In  many  operations,  such  as  annealing  glass  or  wire,  the 
enamelling  or  glazing  of  various  materials,  it  is  necessary  to 
heat  them  gradually  till  they  reach  a  high  temperature,  main- 
tain them  at  that  heat  for  a  time  then  cool  them  gradually. 
It  is  usual  to  do  this  in  a  chamber  and  the  oven  or  chamber 
is  gradually  heated  to  a  higher  temperature  then  allowed  to 
cool  for  each  charge  of  material  treated.  This  involves  a  con- 
siderable loss  of  heat.  The  wear  and  tear  of  the  oven  is  ex- 
cessively great  owing  to  the  frequent  expansion  and  contraction 
of  the  brick  work  and  its  injury  by  hard  firing  to  get  the  heat 
up  to  the  maximum. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  165 


Mr.  Dawson  designed  a  continuous  furnace  for  the 
purpose  of  carbonizing  large  blocks  of  material  for  use 
in  electrolytic  work,  which  obviated  this  objection  and 
difficulty.  The  design  consisted  of  a  long  furnace  heated 
to  a  high  heat  by  gas  at  the  middle.  The  hot  products  of 
combustion  traveled  from  the  middle  to  the  charging  end 
of  the  furance,  growing  gradually  cooler  as  they  neared 
the  end.  The  far  end  of  the  oven  was  not  heated  at  all. 
The  blocks  to  be  carbonized  were  carried  on  wagons,  which 
were  protected  from  the  excessive  heat  by  a  special  de- 
vice. The  whole  furnace  was  kept  full  of  wagons  push- 
ed into  and  through  the  furance  by  a  hydraulic  ram.  Each 
wagon  as  it  entered  encountered  a  moderate  heat  that  grew 
stronger  until  it  reached  a  maximum  at  the  middle,  and 
cooled  gradually  until  it  reached  the  far  end.  The  rate 
at  which  the  wagons  traveled  was  guaged  so  that  the  work 
was  done  by  the  time  it  reached  the  middle  of  the  furnace. 

Advantages  of  Gas  Over  Steam  in  Engines 

The  gas  as  it  comes  out  of  the  gas  producer  is  not 
fit  to  be  used  in  an  engine.  It  is  too  hot.  If  it  is  to  be 
burned  in  a  furnace,  the  hotter  it  is  the  better,  but  for  use 
in  the  engine  it  must  be  cooled  almost  to  atmospheric  heat. 
It  is  also  too  tarry  and  full  of  hydro-carbons.  These  are 
valuable  in  gas  that  is  to  be  burned  in  a  furnace,  but  they 
clog  the  pipes  and  the  chambers  of  the  engine.  Hence, 
for  use  in  engines  the  gas  must  be  cleaned  and  cooled  in 
scrubbers,  which  makes  a  gas  engine  plant  more  com- 
plicated and  expensive  than  a  metallurgic  gas  plant.  Yet, 
withal,  it  still  maintains  various  advantages  over  a  steam- 
engine  plant. 

1.  Gas  producer  may  be  at  considerable  distance  from 
the  engine.  If  various  engines  are  used  in  a  plant,  each 
engine  ought  to  be  as  near  as  possible  to  the  work  it  is 
to  do.  If  it  is  far  from  its  work,  many  and  long  shafts 
or  belts  are  necessary,  each  using  up  energy  and  each 
liable  to  get  out  of  order  and  certain  to  wear  out.     In  a 


166  COAL 

steam  plant  the  engines  ought  to  be  near  the  boiler;  steam 
sent  long  distances  in  pipes  cools  and  loses  by  condensa- 
tion. In  a  scattered  plant  the  engines  cannot  be  both  near 
work  and  near  the  boiler,  so  there  is  loss  whichever  evil 
is  chosen.  Gas  from  a  producer  may  be  carried  to  a  con- 
siderable distance.  It  does  not  condense,  and  loss  of  heat 
may  be  a  benefit  rather  than  a  deteriment.  Hence  the 
producer  ovens  may  be  arranged  in  batteries  in  one  part 
of  the  plant,  and  the  engines  placed  where  each  will  be 
near  its  allotted  work. 

In  discussing  the  tests  of  the  Bering  River  coal,  we 
found  that,  even  as  good  coal  as  that  failed  to  do  satis- 
factory work  on  boilers  requiring  forced  draft.  The 
Geological  Survey  made  many  tests  of  gas  producers  at 
St.  Louis.     They  say: 

These  tests  in  the  gas  producer  have  shown  that  many 
fuels  of  such  low  grade  as  to  be  practically  valueless  for 
steaming  purposes,  such  as  slack  coal,  bone  coal  and  lignite, 
may  be  economically  converted  into  producer  gas  and  may 
thus  generate  sufficient  power  to  render  them  of  high  com- 
mercial value.  Coals  with  ash  as  high  as  forty-four  per  cent, 
a^d  lignites  and  peats  high  in  moisture  have  been  converted 
into  gas  that  has  been  used  in  operating  gas  engines.  It  has 
been  demonstrated  that  the  low-grade  coals  high  in  sulphur 
and  ash  now  left  under  ground  can  be  used  in  the  gas  producer. 

3.  Gas  producer  engines  are  more  efficient  than  steam 
engines. 

The  same  report  says  : 

It  is  estimated  that  on  the  average,  each  coal  tested  in  the 
gas  producer  plant  developed  two  and  one-half  times  the 
power  that  it  would  develop  if  used  in  the  ordinary  steam 
boiler  plant.  It  was  found  that  the  low-grade  lignite  of  North 
Dakota  developed  as  much  power  when  converted  into  pro- 
ducer gas  as  did  the  best  West  Virginia  bituminous  coals  when 
used  under  the  steam  boiler. 

Dawson  made  tests  in  which  he  compared  the  efficiency 
of  the  gas-producer  engine  with  the  steam  engine.     His 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  167 


first  test  was  of  a  two  hundred  and  fifty  horse-power  en- 
gine producing  one  hundred  units  of  energy.  He  found: 
1.  To  produce  one  hundred  units  of  energy  by  a  steam 
driven  engine  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  horse-power  it 
took  eleven  hundred  and  twenty  units  of  heat  energy.  2. 
To  produce  one  hundred  units  of  energy  by  a  gas  engine 
of  two  hundred  and  fifty  horse-power  it  took  five  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  units  of  heat  energy.  Therefore, 
for  a  two  hundred  and  fifty  horse-power  engine,  the  gas 
producer  engine  is  two  and  one-seventh  times  as  efficient 
as  a  like  steam  engine. 

His  next  test  was  of  a  forty  horse-power  engine.  He 
found:  1.  To  product  one  hundred  units  of  energy  by 
a  steam  engine  of  forty  horse-power,  it  took  sixteen  hun- 
dred and  eighty  units  of  heat  energy.  2.  To  produce 
one  hundred  units  of  energy  by  a  gas  engine  of  forty  horse- 
power, it  took  four  hundred  and  ninety-four  heat  units. 
Therefore,  for  a  forty  horse-power  engine  the  gas  engine 
is  three  and  four-tenths  times  as  efficient  as  the  steam  en- 
gine. 

Byproduct  Gas  And  Coke  Producer 

In  the  byproduct  oven  the  coal  is  heated  and  distilled 
without  the  air's  coming  into  contact  with  the  coal.  The 
two  major  products  are  cokes  and  gas ;  and  the  gas  is  then 
treated  so  as  to  extract  the  various  byproducts. 

The  gas  comes  out  of  the  oven  very  hot  and  may  be' 
treated  in  either  of  two  ways:     (1)    By  an  alternate  pro- 
cess of  cooling  and  heating.     (2)    By  a  continuous  process 
of  cooling. 

(1)     Alternate  process  of  cooling  and  heating. 

The  gas  is  passed  through  a  cooler  which  reduces  the 
temperature  to  100  to  125  degrees  fahrenheit,  while  at  this 
temperature  the  ammonia  is  taken  out  and  the  tar  is  ex- 
tracted. 

This  is  the  end  of  the  cooling  process. 


168  COAL 


The  gas,  now  being  freed  from  its  ammonia  and  tar, 
may  either  be  further  cleaned  and  then  passed  on  to  be 
used  in  lighting  and  heating,  or  it  may  be  washed  with 
various  absorbent  oils  for  its  byproducts. 

The  tar  may  now  be  heated  gradually  and  as,  the  tem- 
perature reaches  the  boiling  point  of  each  of  the  various 
constituents  in  the  tar,  that  product  is  taken  off,  then  at  a 
still  higher  heat  the  boiling  point  of  another  constituent  is 
reached  and  it  is  taken  off,  and  so  on  up  to  over  600°  F.  at 
least. 

(2)   Continuous  cooling  process. 

This  is  the  Walter  Feld  process  of  extracting  the  ma- 
jor byproducts.  Feld  reasoned  that  it  is  a  wasteful  pro- 
cess to  allow  the  gas  to  cool,  and  the  various  contents  in 
it  without  taking  them  out  and  then  heating  them  all  over 
again.     The  two  principles  made  use  of  are: 

(a)  Each  major  constituent  in  the  hot  gas  has  a  definite 
"dew"  point.  That  is,  when  the  temperature  of  the  gas  is 
reduced  to  that  dew  point  that  constituent  is  precipiated. 

(b)  The  best  way  to  take  off  each  constituent  is  to 
have  the  gas  come  into  contact  with  that  constituent  in 
liquid  form  and  at  a  temperature  a  little  less  than  its  dew 
point. 

Therefore  Feld  arranged  eleven  washers,  or  vessels, 
each  containing  a  liquid  of  one  of  the  constituents  of  the 
gas  at  about  the  temperature  of  its  condensation. 

The  gas  between  its  initial  temperature  and  600°  de- 
posited pitch.  At  608°  it  came  in  contact  with  anthra- 
cene, and  anthracene  is  deposited.  So,  with  temperature 
of  420°  it  came  in  contact  with  napthalene ;  creosol  at  338°  ; 
solvent  naptha  at  300°;  xylol  at  288°;  toluol  at  230°; 
benzol  at  190°;  cyanogen  at  110°,  and  ammonia  at  95°. 
Each  constituent  was  taken  out  at  its  dew  point. 

The  most  common  way  however,  in  this  country  is  the 
cooling,  the  heating  the  tar,  and  washing  the  gas  process, 
because  the  object  is  simply  to  get  cyanogen,  sulphate  of 
ammonia,  benzol,  and  toluol.  These  products  are  well 
worth  saving. 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  169 


(1)  Cyanogen  is  used  in  the  cyanide  process  of  ex- 
tracting gold  from  its  ore  and  in  such  poisons  as  cyanide  of 
potassium. 

(2)  Sulphate  of  ammonia  as  a  fertilizer  is  so  valuable 
that  it  has  been  proposed  to  erect  byproduct  ovens  for  the 
prime  purpose  of  making  sulphate  of  ammonia  for  fer- 
tilizer. The  following  quotation  from  a  recent  paper  ex- 
presses the  fact  of  the  value  of  sulphate  of  ammonia  as 
a  needed  fertilizer. 

Students  long  ago  came  to  appreciate  the  seriousness  of 
our  farm  problem.  Every  county  has  its  farming  community 
which  is  worth  to  it  millions  of  dollars.  This  value  is  deter- 
iorating because  of  the  impoverishment  of  the  soil.  Farmers 
and  farm  workers  by  the  tens  of  thousands  are  deserting  their 
old  communities,  friends  and  environs  to  go  into  the  distant 
fields  of  Western  Canada.  A  large  part  of  the  East  is  now 
considered  as  practically  unfarmable  territory.  Ohio  is  de- 
teriorating and  the  point  is  rapidly  approaching  where  even 
Illinois,  Indiana  and  Iowa  will  become  hard  States  in  which 
to  farm.  The  one  thing  which  this  land  needs  is  to  be  fed 
with  a  soil  enricher.  One  of  the  byproducts  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  coke  is  ammonium  sulphate  which  is  ideal  for  the 
enrichment  of  impoverished  soil.  I  have  in  mind  one  farming 
district  which  now  has  under  consideration  the  building  of 
byproduct  ovens  not  alone  for  the  supply  of  gas  but  also  for 
the  ammonium  sulphate  and  other  byproducts. 

3.  Benzol  and  Toluol.  The  importance  of  extracting 
from  the  tar  these  two  constituents  was  scarcely  realized 
before  the  war.  England,  too,  was  asleep;  Germany 
awake.  Prof.  Bone  in  a  lecture  in  London,  while  war 
was  going  on,  said  : 

Benzine  was  discovered  by  Faraday  twenty  years  before 
Hoffman  demonstrated  its  presence  in  coal  tar.  Mansfield  dis- 
tilled it  and  toluene  from  coal  tar.  After  Hoffman  returned 
to  Berlin  in  1865,  the  industry  gradually  left  England  and 
went  to  Germany.  For  years  before  the  war,  German  chemists 
had  been  preparing  the  way  for  its  use  in  war  by  providing 
for  saving  it  from  industrial  processes  while  England  was  car- 
bonizing it  all.  Germany's  violation  of  Belgium  and  seizure  of 
that  country  and  Northern  France  had  more  than  mere  military 
importance.  It  was  the  coal  fields  for  the  manufacture  of 
high  explosives  that  the  Germans  wanted,  the  Westphalian  coal 


170  COAL 


did  not  yield  such  large  quantities  of  toluol  or  benzol  as  Belgium 
or  English  coal.  For  the  supply  of  high  explosives  we  de- 
pended entirely  on  benzol  and  toluol,  and  with  our  present 
method  of  carbonizing  coal  the  supply  is  limited.  The  min- 
istry of  munitions  was  guilty  of  culpable  negligence  in  dis- 
regarding the  warning  of  chemists,  and  if  we  failed  to  keep 
up  supplies  of  explosives  it  would  be  due  to  lack  of  initiative 
and  insight  on  the  part  of  those  who  should  have  known. 
After  the  war  there  must  be  a  systematic  investigation  of 
tne  chemical  nature  of  coal  and  a  chemical  survey  of  the 
principal   British   coal   fields. 

This  charge  of  extravagant  waste  of  coal!  products  cer- 
tainly applies  to  us,  and  the  call  to  remedy  it  after  the 
war  is  as  urgent.  It  is  a  common  saying  that  "Chemistry 
fought  the  war."  And  of  the  products  of  chemical  skill, 
benzol  and  toluol  are  pre-eminent.  Not  only  did  benzol 
furnish  high  explosives  but  it  furnished  motive  power. 
The  scarcity  of  gasoline  for  use  in  their  trucks  and  auto- 
mobiles would  have  been  fatal  to  Germany,  had  not  the 
supply  of  benzol  furnished  the  substitute.  And  it  will  help 
Germany  on  her  way  to.  recovery.  It  is  said  that  benzol 
is  used  almost  entirely  in  German  automobile  and  truck 
engines. 

If  benzol  is  produced  in  excess  of  demand,  or  not  used 
in  engines,  it  is  turned  over  to  the  chemical  industry. 
Benzol  is  the  chief  raw  material  of  the  artificial  dye-stuff 
industry.  From  it  may  come  phenol,  vanalin,  ammonite, 
hydro-chinon, — a  photographic  product, — and  antifebrine, 
as  well  as  analyne  dyes.  Toluol  gives  benzoic  acid,  and 
benzol  alcohol. 

From  the  various  primaries  mentioned  before  in  con- 
nection with  the  Feld  process,  chemistry  derives  drugs 
and  dyes  almost  innumerable.  Germany's  pre-eminence  in 
the  field  of  dye-stuffs  manufactured  from  coal  tar  should 
halt  our  waste. 

Not  only  had  Germany  for  years  been  developing  the 
bases  of  her  explosives  and  her  motive  fuel  but  she  had 
almost   cornered   the   market    for   medicines   and   certain 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  171 


drugs.  She  had  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  dye  industry. 
We  can  get  along  comfortably  without  most  of  the  dyes, 
but  if  we  can  get  them  from  what  we  have  been  throwing 
away,  it  is  well  to  see  if  it  is  not  worth  while  to  get  them. 
The  way  in  which  Germany  was  "putting  it  over"  on 
England  and  us  is  well  expressed  by  Dr.  Howard  in  his 
"Industrial  Progress  of  Germany,"  written  in  1907. 

The  most  interesting  branch  of  the  chemical  industry  is  the 
manufacture  of  dye  stuffs  from  coal  tar.  It  is  in  this  field  that 
the  most  recent  and  brilliant  achievements  of  the  German 
chemists  have  been  won.  In  1860  all  the  dyes  used  were  or- 
ganic, and  Germany  was  almost  entirely  dependent  on  foreign 
countries  for  her  supply.  The  annual  cost  to  the  country 
was  twenty-four  million,  one  hundred  twenty  thousand  dollars. 
By  1900,  the  import  had  sunk  to  almost  nothing  and  the  ex- 
ports had  risen  to  twenty-four  million,  three  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  Almost  without  exception  the  discovery  and  produc- 
tion of  coal-tar  dyes  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Germans. 
The  raw  material  is  the  byproduct  of  gas  and  coke  manufac- 
ture, which  was  formerly  a  worse  than  useless  waste.  Now 
Germany  not  only  utilizes  all  the  coal  tar  produced  in  that 
country  but  imports  large  quantities  in  the  form  of  benzol 
from  Belgium,  Great  Britain  and  Austria-Hungary.  All  this 
import  and  more  is  sold  back  to  these  countries  again,  multi- 
plied many  times  in  value  in  the  shape  of  dyes.  Four-fifths 
of  all  the  world's  products  of  dye  stuffs,  as  well  as  large  pro- 
portions of  the  medical  preparations  derived  from  coal  tar  are 
made  in  Germany.  The  annual  production  of  these  dyes 
amounted   in   1897  to  thirty  million   dollars  worth. 

For  centuries  indigo  had  been  one  of  the  great  items 
of  import  to  the  textile-producing  countries.  In  1897  the 
German  chemist  Bayer  discovered  a  process  of  making 
artificial  indigo,  which  revolutionized  this  trade.  In  1902 
the  export  of  artificial  indigo  from  Germany  was  eighteen 
million  pounds.  The  discovery  of  this  artificial  indigo  was 
no  doubt  brought  about  by  the  Feld  process  previously  de- 
scribed. Anthracene, — from  which  Lazarene  is  derived, 
and  from  it  indigo, — is  precipitated  from  gas  when  it  has 
been  reduced  in  temperature  to  608°  F.  Chemists  who 
heated  the  tar  to  get  the  products  mostly  went  but  little 
above  the  temperature  for  boiling  o  f toluol,  or  230°. 


172  COAL 


Enough  has  been  said  to  show  how  absurd  and  waste- 
ful it  is  to  burn  raw  coal  and  with  it  these  valuable  pro- 
ducts. It  is  even  more  absurd  to  sell  our  coal  abroad  as 
we  have  been  doing,  and  after  they,  as  in  Germany,  have 
taken  out  of  their  coal  the  fuel,  gas,  and  coke,  sell  us 
back  at  a  high  price  products  like  the  ones  we  have  given 
them  for  nothing  and  boasted  of  our  great  export  trade. 
Mr.  Porter,  in  a  lecture  in  1914,  said: 

If  the  coke  produced  in  the  United  States  in  1913  had  been 
made  in  byproduct  ovens  eighty  million  dollars  worth  of  by- 
products might  have  been  saved  and  ten  million  more  in  the 
higher  yield  of  coke.  Instead  of  burning  in  a  single  operation, 
as  is  done  in  a  combustion  furnace  using  coal,  whereby  all 
coal  and  intermediate  products  evolved  from  it  are  burned  for 
their  heat  value  only,  the  byproduct  ovens  convert  it  into 
two  improved  forms  of  fuel,  coke,  and  gas,  with  a  combined 
heat  value  about  eighty-five  per  cent  of  the  heat  of  the  coal, 
and  in  addition  save  the  byproducts,  tar,  benzol,  and  ammonia 
which  have  a  chemical  value  far  exceeding  their  fuel  value. 

The  case  in  1919  was  more  impressive;  in  that  year 
bee-hive  ovens  produced  33,000,000  tons  of  coke.  If  the 
coal  had  been  burned  in  byproduct  ovens,  the  output  would 
have  been  2,400,000  tons  more  coke;  400,000,000  gallons 
of  the  tar;  545,000  tons  of  ammonia  sulphate;  82,000,000 
gallons  of  benzol;  20,000,000  gallons  of  toluol,  and  300,- 
000,000  cubic  feet  of  gas.  The  benzol  wasted  would  have 
been  enough  to  replace  a  hundred  million  gallons  of 
gasoline.  Ammonia  sulphate  wasted  was  enough  to  fer- 
tilize 10,000,000  acres  of  land,  giving  each  acre  100  pounds 
of  it,  and  estimated  to  increase  the  wheat  crop  by  80,000,- 
000  bushels. 

Effect  on  Labor 

Aside  from  the  direct  economic  value  of  this  scientific 
use  of  the  coal,  it  has  been  suggested  that  it  will  tend  to 
stabilize  mine  labor.  The  miner  now  has  little  hope  of 
moving  up,  each  advance  bringing  better  pay  for  its  re- 
quirement of  skill.  An  intelligent  young  man  becomes  a 
miner,  he  works  year  after  year,  each  new  year  being  just 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  173 


like  the  old  one.  He  sees  young  men  in  other  industries 
win  higher  places  by  faithful  work  and  study.  If  nothing 
more,  he  thinks  his  long  years  of  service  should  bring  him 
more  wages.  He  asks  an  increase.  The  manager  might 
be  willing  to  reward  him  for  his  loyalty,  but  the  kind  of 
work  he  is  doing  is  paid  for  at  the  same  rate  to  all,  the 
industry  cannot  stand  an  increase  all  around.  Suppose 
the  coal  business  is  not  simply  a  Hewing  industry,  but 
starting  with  coal  mining  as  a  first  step  it  develops  from 
step  to  step  in  a  series  of  industries,  each  industry  in  the 
series  requiring  greater  skill  and  knowledge  and  command- 
ing higher  wages,  then  the  young  man  who  has  done  his 
work  faithfully  in  his  present  position  and  fitted  himself 
for  higher  position  does  not  strike  for  more  pay,  instead, 
he  advances  to  a  place  of  greater  pay  and  greater  responsi- 
bility. 

METHODS  OF  INCREASE  OF  EFFICIENCY  IN  THE  USE  OF  COAL 

( 1 )  Intelligent  Self-interest  As  Knowledge  Increases 
Burning  in  furnaces.  Increase  of  efficiency  in  the  use 
of  coal  is  encouraged  by  helpful  information  in  bulletins 
issued  by  the  Bureau  of  Mines,  showing  how  to  burn  coal 
in  both  domestic  and  industrial  furnaces ;  by  schools  for 
firemen  on  railroads,  in  which  expert  fuel  engineers  in- 
struct the  firemen  in  methods  of  firing  so  as  to  save  coal ; 
by  companies  that  send  out  fuel  engineers  to  inspect  the 
furnaces  of  their  customers  and  show  the  firemen  how 
to  fire  their  coal  and  show  the  customers  what  kind  of 
furnace  they  need ;  by  furnace  makers,  who  are  improv- 
ing their  furnaces  and  appealing  to  buyers  on  the  ground 
of  their  fuel  saving;  by  introduction  of  stokers  because 
they  save  coal  and  also  labor  cost. 

Byproduct  Ovens 

Centralized  plants  are  being  made  to  pay  as  invest- 
ments, and  that  will  attract  capital.    . 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  coke-making  in  the 
United  States  more  coke  was  made  in  1919  in  byproduct 


174  COAL 


ovens  than  in  bee-hive  ovens,  being  56  per  cent  of  the 
entire  coke  output.  In  1919,  1228  new  byproduct  ovens 
were  completed,  of  which  718  were  new  plants,  the  rest 
being  extensions  of  old  plants. 

In  1919  byproduct  ovens  produced  35,000,000  tons  of 
coke,  using  50,000,000  tons  of  coal,  and  producing  668,000,- 
000  pounds  of  sulphate  of  ammonia;  251,000,000  gallons 
of  tar;  140,000,000  gallons  of  crude  oil,  and  370,000,000 
cubic  feet  of  gas. 

A  single  steel  company  is  burning  2,000  tons  of  coal 
every  24  hours,  the  byproducts  being  2,000  gallons  of  crude 
tar;  6,000  pounds  of  ammonia  sulphate;  7,000  gallons  of 
light  oil ;  fuel  gas  for  boilers  and  electrical  driving  ma- 
chinery in  mines,  quarries  and  furnaces,  and  overplus  of 
7,000,000  cubic  feet  for  market. 

The  St.  Louis  Coke  and  Chemical  Company  is  construc- 
ting a  byproduct  plant  at  Granite,  Illinois,  which  will,  when 
the  four  units  of  80  ovens  each  are  completed,  coke  8,000 
tons  of  Illinois  and  Indiana  coal  every  day. 

(2)  Government  Regulation  and  Control 

(a)  Burning  in  furnaces.  The  mining  department  has 
not  accomplished  its  full  purpose  if  it  does  not  help  and 
control,  so  as  to  lessen  waste  and  promote  efficiency  in 
coal  consumption  as  well  as  in  coal  production. 

The  inspectors  report  all  conditions  in  all  the  mines, 
including  the  kind  and  efficiency  of  their  furnaces  and 
boilers.  These  should  be  under  a  sensible,  helpful,  but 
firm  control.  If  a  mine  doesn't  need  a  change,  no  harm 
is  done;  if  it  does,  it  will  be  benefitted. 

Other  plants,  if  found  to  be  wasteful  and  unwilling  to 
change,  might  be  denied  railroad  facilities  in  coal.  Dur- 
ing the  war  coal  was  denied  to  some  industries  that  wasted 
coal. 

(b)  Byproduct  plants.  As  stated  before,  a  consistent 
effort  is  to  be  made  to  centralize  and  conserve  power.  It 
should  be  the  duty  of  the  Mining  Department  to.  study  the 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  175 


various  coal  fields ;  map  out  a  general  scheme  of  centraliza- 
tion ;  if  possible,  enlist  capital  in  carrying  it  out.  A  system 
of  loans  by  the  government  could  be  established  similar  to 
farm  loans, — money  to  be  loaned  when  needed  to  hasten 
construction  of  byproduct  plants  and  hydro-electric  "super- 
power" plants. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

AUXILIARIES  TO  OUR  COAL  SUPPLY 

Oil:  Old  Oil  Fields  Nearly  Exhausted— Oil  Fields  in  the 
Western  part  of  United  States— Southwestern  Oil  Field— Oil 
from  Oil-Bearing  Schist— Mexican  Oil  Fields— Coal  Operators 
Alarmed  at  the  Invasion  of  Cheap  Oil— Indirect  Effect:  Les- 
sens Freight  and  Lessens  Demand  of  Engines  for  Coal- 
Operators  Demand  a  Tariff  on  Oil. 

In  discussing  coal  conservation,  it  seems  proper  and 
necessary  to  give  a  statement  of  the  way  in  which  oil 
and  "white  coal"  or  water  power  auxiliaries  help  con- 
servation. 

Oil  As  a  Conservation  Help 

If  we  were  to  state  it  as  coal  operators  would,  it 
would  be  "oil  as  a  menace  to  the  coal  industry." 

Our  Present  Home  Contribution 

The  old  oil  fields  are  practically  exhausted,  so  far  as 
being  an  aid  to  conservation  or  a  "menace"  to  the  coal 
industry  is  concerned.  The  production  is  so  small  that 
it  sells  for  more  than  six  dollars  a  barrel.  If  a  barrel  of 
oil  is  equivalent  to  one-fourth  of  a  ton  of  coal,  coal 
would  have  to  sell  at  twenty-four  dollars  a  ton  to  be  as 
dear  as  oil. 

There  never  was  a  time  when  "Pennsylvania  Oil," 
which  is  the  standard  oil  of  the  world,  could  supplant 
coal  by  its  cheapness.  When  this  oil  was  so  cheap  that 
it  was  used  most  wastefully,  coal  also  was  so  cheap 
that  it  was  both  mined  and  used  wastefully. 

Appalachian  or  "Pennsylvania  oil,"  was  sold  at  fifty 
cents  to  ninety-six  cents  a  barrel,  while  coal  was  sold 
at  ninety-five  cents  a  ton. 

Oil  Fields  in  the  Western  Part  of  the  United  States 

California  has  been  the  great  oil  state  of  the  West. 
It  commenced  to  produce  oil   about   1860,   and  by   1904 

176 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  177 


produced  one-fourth  of  all  the  oil  then  produced  in  the 
United  States.  Some  of  the  wells  rivalled  the  great 
wells  in  Mexico,  flowing  ten  thousand  barrels  a  day, 
and  the  output  was  so  great  that  it  sold  as  low  as  sev- 
enteen cents  a  barrel. 

Oil  could  not  be  called  a  conserver  of  local  coal  in 
the  West,  as  the  coal  is  in  scattered  areas,  and  mostly 
poor  coal.  It  might  better  be  said  that  it  supplemented 
coal.  Industries,  which  would  not  have  been  developed 
by  the  use  of  coal,  were  developed  by  the  use  of  oil. 
It  increased  railroad  facilities,  as  it  now  fuels  the  rail- 
road engines  on  the  roads  running  east  and  west  for 
many  miles.  It  fuels  ships  that  ply  in  and  out  of  San 
Francisco   and   along   the    Pacific   Coast. 

It  will  conserve  the  Pocahontas  Coal  that  would 
have  been  carried  to  the  Pacific  Coast  to  coal  our  bat- 
tleships, by  now  fuelling  them  with  oil.  Oil  in  Cali- 
fornia is  now  being  used  less  wastefully  and  more 
scientifically.  It  is  being  fractionated,  so  that  valuable 
byproducts,  such  as  gasoline  and  kerosene,  are  being 
extracted  and  the  fuel  oil  used  for  burning  directly. 

The  Southwestern  Oil  Field 

The  Southwestern  oil  field  is  situated  in  several  de- 
tached fields  in  the  States  of  Texas,  Louisiana,  Okla- 
homa, and  Southern  Kansas.  The  prdouction  is  at 
present  increasing.  Some  of  the  wells  are  now  shut 
in,  and  their  possible  output  is  not  definitely  known.  If 
we  believe  the  circulars  sent  out  by  promoting  com- 
panies, if  all  possible  production  were  let  loose  at  once, 
a  dangerous  flood  would  result.  This  field,  like  other 
fields  of  large  production,  has  suffered  from  the  igno- 
rance and  dishonesty  of  many  operators.  Ignorant  men 
think  that  a  space  large  enough  for  a  derrick,  sur- 
rounded by  large  producing  wells,  will  last  indefinitely ; 
dishonest  promoters  secure  a  small  area  and  proceed 
to  issue  millions  of  stock  on  the  strength  of  a  single 
well,  which,  even  if  large,  can  last  but  a  few  months. 


178  COAL 


In  this  way  the  areas  in  the  oldest  fields  of  the  South- 
west are  being  rapidly  drained.  In  one  field  in  Louis- 
iana, 68  per  cent  of  the  deep  mines  were  dry,  and  the 
large  wells  declined  85  to  95  per  cent  in  a  year. 

The  field  will  yield  a  large  production,  however ; 
wells  of  ten  thousand  to  twenty  thousand  barrels  a  day 
are  struck.  It  is  a  pity  that  there  cannot  be  a  control 
exercised  that  will  keep  these  wells  closed  that  are  not 
needed  until  "topping"  plants  can  be  made,  which  ought 
to  save  the  valuable  byproducts,  which  are  of  more 
value  when  extracted  than  their  heat  value  when  burned 
raw. 

Oil  From  Oil-bearing  Schist  in  Various  States 

The  United  States  Geological  Survey  announces  that 
billions  of  barrels  of  crude  oil  exist  in  the  rocky  schist 
of  Utah,  Colorado,  Wyoming,  and  other  Western  States, 
and  that  from  forty  to  fifty  gallons  of  crude  oil  can  be  ob- 
tained from  each  ton  of  this  schist.  The  cost  of  mining 
and  retorting  the  ore  is  small,  as  the  rocks  are  standing 
above  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  can  be  dug  out  of 
the  hill  and  sent  down  to  the  retorts  by  gravity.  To  mine 
and  retort  this  schist  will  cost  sixty  cents  a  ton,  and  from 
a  ton  the  forty  gallons  of  crude  oil  obtained  will  cost  a 
cent  and  a  half  a  gallon. 

From  the  forty  gallons  of  crude  oil,  eighty  gallons  of 
gasoline,  sixteen  gallons  of  kersone,  and  sixteen  gallons 
of  fuel  oil  will  be  obtained.  This  oil  is,  of  course,  not 
now  available  commercially.  Experiment  and  investiga- 
tion have  shown  the  real  value  of  this  deposit  to  be  great. 
It  should  not  now  be  developed  but  held  in  reserve  to  take 
the  place  of  some  of  the  other  sources  of  oil  supply  which 
the  wild  scramble  for  the  ready  dollar  will  soon  exhaust. 

Foreign  Contribution  to  Our  Oil  Supply  Mexican  Oil 

Fields 

The  fields  in  Mexico,  under  development  now,  are 
near  the  eastern  border  of  the  country,  within  thirty  or 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  179 


forty  miles  of  Tampico  and  Tuxpan.  From  Tampico  it 
takes  a  tank-steamer  from  two  to  nine  days  to  reach  the 
various  points  on  our  coast. 

The  oil  fields  west  and  southwest  of  Tampico  produce 
a  very  heavy  oil,  which  can  scarcely  be  sent  through  pipes 
without  heating.  Wells  here  are  not  so  large,  but  flow 
almost  indefinitely. 

The  fields  south  of  Tampico  and  nearer  Tuxpan  pro- 
duce a  lighter  oil,  and  the  oil  is  piped  to  Tuxpan  or  Tam- 
pico. Enormous  wells  here  produce  as  much  as  ten  thou- 
sand to  twenty  thousand  barrels  a  day.  The  export  to 
the  United  States  was  thirty-nine  million  barrels  in  1918, 
displacing  about  ten  million  tons  of  coal. 

Much  more  would  have  been  imported  if  tank-steamers 
and  barges  had  been  available.  Now,  since  the  war  is 
over  and  ships  released  from  overseas  use  and  large  num- 
bers of  new  larger  vessels  are  being  built,  the  transporta- 
tion will  become  ready  for  all  the  oil  that  can  be  sold. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  proved  fields  in  Mexico  can 
produce  two-thirds  of  a  billion  barrels  a  year, — enough 
to  equal  in  heat  value  all  the  coal  mined  in  a  year  in 
Pennsylvania.  It  is  not  probable  that  anything  near  such 
enormous  export  as  that  will  ever  be  reached.  The  present 
rate  of  output  is  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  million  bar- 
rels a  year. 

Operators  Alarmed  by  the  Invasion  of   Cheap  Fuel 

Oil  producers  had  too  few  customers  for  the  output 
to  which  they  had  been  forced  by  war  demand.  To  have 
their  old  customers  taken  away  from  them  by  this  new 
foreign  competitor  they  regard  with  alarm  and  resentment. 
Their  own  cost  of  production  has  been  greatly  increased. 
Increased  cost  of  labor,  equipment,  and  supplies,  increase 
in  freight  rates,  make  it  impossible  to  compete  with  this 
new  cheap  untaxed  "inexhaustible"  rival.  Cheap  labor  in 
the  Mexican  oil  fields,  wells  flowing  like  a  small  river,  set 
a  price  at  the  wells,  at  times,  as  low  as  one  cent  a  barrel. 


180  COAL 


Long  contracts  have  been  made  at  Mexican  ports  for 
twenty-four  cents  a  barrel.  Cost  of  transportation  in  tanks 
and  barges  is  so  small  that  oil  was  sold  at  from  sixty  cents 
to  a  dollar  a  barrel  on  the  Atlantic  Coast.  Oil  sold  in 
New  England  at  a  dollar  a  barrel  would  require  West 
Virginia  coal  to  sell  at  four  dollars  a  ton,  which  is  less 
than  freight  rate,  with  nothing  for  the  coal. 

Oil  is  carried  up  the  Mississippi  River  and  sold  within 
twenty  miles  of  the  Illinois  coal  fields  for  less  than  coal 
prices.  Barges  are  being  planned  to  carry  oil  up  the  New 
York  Canal,  so  as  to  compete  with  coal  in  the  Lake  cities. 

Ships  are  being  equipped  to  burn  oil,  engines  use  oil, 
oil  is  used  for  fuel  in  making  china,  tile,  pottery,  terra  cotta, 
brick,  in  metallurgical  furnaces,  and  for  domestic  use. 

Indirect  Effect 

The  more  ships  equipped  to  burn  oil,  the  less  bunker 
coal  is  needed,  the  less  freight  of  coal  from  the  coal  field 
to  the  Coast,  the  less  freight  engine  coal  needed. 

The  freight  engines  that  have  hauled  coal  from  the 
New  England  Coast  to  the  interior  will  haul  oil,  and  oil 
that  will  make  as  much  heat  as  the  coal  it  displaces  will 
weigh  less  than  two-thirds  as  much  as  the  coal  and  take 
fewer  engines  to  haul  the  oil  and  less  coal  to  fuel  them, 
even  if  they  use  coal.  Eventually  oil  companies  may  pipe 
their  oil  from- the  Coast,  and  thus  also  supplant  oil  freight. 

Operators  Demand  a  Tariff  on  Mexican  Oil 

They  demand  protection  of  our  high-priced  skilled  labor 
against  low-paid  unskilled  labor.  They  say  that  men  who 
have  spent  their  lives  and  money  to  build  up  and  supply 
a  national  necessity,  who  pay  taxes  and  have  had  small 
profit,  must  not  be  destroyed.  Industrial  users,  who  are 
now  changing  to  oil,  cannot  complain  that  their  oil  is  taxed, 
thev  have  been  warmed  into  life  and  prosperity  by  cheap 
coal,  which  operators  furnished  them  at  cost,  or  below.     A 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  181 


specimen  instance  is  given  of  a  factory  which  was  given 
coal  during  the  war  on  a  contract  which  netted  the  operator 
a  dollar  a  ton  loss.  When  the  contract  expired,  the  factory 
changed  to  oil. 

It  Is  Not  Likely  That  a  Tariff  Will  Be  Imposed 

We  need  the  Mexican  oil  to  conserve  our  domestic  oil 
and  its  byproducts.     The  Bureau  of  Mines  says: 

The  consumption  of  petroleum  is  increasing  far  more  rap- 
idly than  is  domestic  production.  During  1918,  we  imported 
thirty-nine  million  barrels  and  withdrew  from  stock  twenty- 
seven  million  barrels.  Our  future  supply  of  oil  must  be  con- 
served, it  is  imperative  that  the  United  States  make  every 
possible  effort  to  further  more  efficient  conservation  of  our 
underground  reserves  of  oil  and  the  more  efficient  use  of  oil 
and  its   products,  because: 

(1)  Oil  has  become  the  basis  of  the  industrial  and  military 
life  of  the  nation  in  that  gasoline  has  become  the  motive  power 
for  some  six  million  automobiles  and  trucks,  for  airplanes,  farm 
tractors  and  motor  boats.  Lubricating  oil  is  essential  for 
machinery  of  all  kinds,  and  not  a  wheel  would  turn  without  it. 

(2)  The  known  oil  reserves  of  the  United  States  are  not 
receiving  adequate  protection,  and  are  being  wasted  through 
inefficient  methods  in  production,  refining  and  using  the  oil. 
The  waste  in  oil  and  natural  gas  in  the  United  States  amounts 
in  a  year  to  $2,000,000,000.  The  United  States  must  take  every 
step   possible   towards    conserving   our   resources    of   oil. 

This  sounds  like  what  we  have  been  saying  about  coal, 
only  that  conservation  of  coal  is  even  more  important  than 
conservation  of  oil.  Motor  oil,  a  byproduct  of  coal,  is 
from  twenty  to  thirty  per  cent  more  efficient  as  a  motive 
power  than  gasoline,  and  there  is  another  lubricant  as  good 
if  not  better  than  oil. 

Pertinent  as  this  appeal  is,  it  will  fall  on  deaf  ears. 
The  new  leasing  law  opening  to  exploitation  the  vast  oil 
fields  of  the  West  has  nothing  in  it  to  safeguard  the  oil. 
It  simply  invites  a  repetition  of  the  criminal  waste  of  the 
past. 

It  is  possible  that  consumers,  who  have  turned  to  oil 


182  COAL 


burning,  are  building  too  largely  on  an  inexhaustible,  cheap 
oil  supply,  and  coal  men  are  unduly  alarmed. 

(1)  Every  oil  and  gas  field  on  which  high  hopes  were 
built  in  the  past  has  fallen  off  in  production,  some  have 
failed  entirely.  Some  of  the  large  wells  in  Mexico  have 
flowed  themselves  out,  and  water  has  drowned  out  the 
oil  in  numbers  of   others. 

(2)  Oil  from  Mexico  is  already  being  increased  in 
price,  so  that  coal  can  compete  in  cheapness.  These  oil 
fields  are  falling  into  the  hands  of  foreign  owners,  and 
they  can  divert  oil  to  other  markets,  as  they  are  doing  to 
the  markets  in  Cuba,  South  America,  Trinidad,  Jamaica, 
British  Guiana,  and  St.  Vincent. 

M.  L.  Goud,  writing  in  April,  1920,  says : 

To-day,  owners  of  oil-burning  steamers  are  having  the 
greatest  difficulty  in  arranging  their  supplies  both  at  United 
States  and  foreign  ports.  The  most  unusual  and  expensive  ex- 
pedients are  adapted  to  secure  oil.  Diversions  of  hundreds  of 
miles  are  necessary  to  obtain  fuel  oil  on  certain  voyages  from 
the  United  States.  There  is  a  real  scarcity  everywhere.  Two 
or  three  times  the  prices  paid  in  1919  are  quoted.  Prices  up 
from  one  hundred,  two  hundred,  three  hundred  per  cent  in 
four  months. 

We  need  all  our  domestic  oil  for  its  byproducts.  While 
we  are  fractionating  our  oil  for  its  valuable  contents  in 
addition  to  its  fuel  oil,  we  are  using  Mexican  oil  to  save 
both  our  oil  and  coal. 

This  "invasion"  of  a  cheap  labor-saving  fuel  may  drive 
our  coal  men  to  use  their  coal  more  scientifically.  By 
constructing  byproducts  ovens  at  the  mine,  or  in  the  center 
of  a  group  of  mines,  saving  the  byproducts,  piping  gas 
for  miles,  or  sending  electric  current,  they  may  bring  a 
more  convenient  fuel  or  energy  to  the  domestic  or  industrial 
user,  and  thus  meet  oil  on  its  own  challenge  of  cleanliness, 
convenience,  and  low  cost. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


The  Old  Water  Wheel— Water  Split  Up  Into  Steam— Cen- 
tralizing Energy  Sources— Three  Kinds  of  Central  Power: 
Steam  Alone,  Water  Alone,  Steam  and  Water  Power — A  Plan 
to  Centralize  Power  Between  the  Boston  and  Washington 
Areas— Electrifying  a  Railroad  By  Water  Power — Hydro-Elec- 
tric Plant  with  Four  Thousand  Feet  Head— Hydro-Electric 
Plant  at  Keokuk,  Iowa — The  Smallest  Public  Service  Hydro- 
Electric  Plant. 

The  Old  Water  Wheel 

Some  of  the  most  famous  paintings  have  as  their  pic- 
turesque feature,  the  mill  dam,  the  mill,  and  the  water 
wheel.  The  charm  is  not  alone  in  the  small  pond  of  water, 
the  rude  mill,  and  water  wheel  but  in  the  added  mental  pic- 
ture that  we  draw  of  the  farmer  coming  with  his  wheat 
and  corn  and  going  home  with  his  flour  and  meal.  It  is 
the  reminder  of  the  bygone  days,  the  days  of  the  sickle, 
the  horse-driven  threshing-machine  and  the  grist-mill.  It 
is  a  picture  of  the  unbought  source  of  energy  dropped 
from  the  friendly  clouds  ready  for  use,  a  source  whose  use 
does  not  diminish  the  supply,  an  ever-renewed  source  of 
energy. 

The  white  coal  is  doing  its  useful  and  civilizing  work. 

The  Steam  Engine 

There  came  a  fortunate  time  when  it  was  found  that 
by  splitting  the  water  up  into  its  vapor,  and  using  it  in 
the  steam  engine,  a  small  amount  of  water  could  be  made 
to  do  the  work  of  a  flood  on  the  water  wheel. 

It  might  seem  that  the  power  of  the  water  to  do  work 
had  been  increased  manyfold.  But  not  so.  The  steam 
in  a  proper  sense  is  not  originating  any  work  at  all.  It  is 
merely  using  the  work  that  was  done  in  expanding  it.    The 

183 


184  COAL 

coal  did  the  work;  the  steam  is  simply  the  rather  wasteful 
but  very  convenient  medium  through  which  work  is  done. 
If  coal,  therefore,  is  doing  the  work  and  being  used  up 
in  doing  it,  and  if  coal  is  not  inexhaustible,  we  must  wel- 
come every  auxiliary  that  can  do  some  of  the  work  and 
save  coal.  Thoughtful  men  are  turning  more  again  to 
"white  coal"  as  that  important  auxiliary. 

Centralizing  Our  Energy  Sources  and  Using  "Super 
Power" 

The  very  gratifying  tendency  now  is  to  centralize  our 
sources  of  energy.  There  are  three  kinds  of  central  en- 
ergy sources. 

(a)  Plants  in  which  the  total  energy  is  furnished  by 
coal.  Such  a  plant  as  that  may  send  out  its  energy  in 
either  of  two  ways:  first, — by  burning  its  coal  in  producer 
ovens  and  piping  gas  to  distant  points  for  use,  or,  second, — 
6y  generating  electricity  and  transmitting  it  to  distant  users. 

(b)  The  hydro-electric  plants,  in  which  the  total  en- 
ergy is  furnished  by  water  power  and  the  output  is  elec- 
tricity. 

(c)  A  "Super  Power"  plant  in  which  electricity  is 
generated  by  water  power,  but  steam  engines  are  "stand- 
ing by,"  ready  to  be  switched  in  to  supplement  water  power 
at  the  peak  of  demand,  or  when  water  supply  is  low.  The 
common  output  of  the  central  plant  is  electricity.  Much 
of  the  work  in  and  about  a  mine  is  done  by  electricity. 
It  is  found  cheaper  and  more  convenient  to  buy  electric 
energy.  This  energy  may  now  be  transmitted  hundreds  of 
miles.  More  and  more  hydro-electric  plants  are  joined 
with  steam  "stand  by"  plants. 

In  February,  1920,  the  report  received  from  three  thou- 
sand one  hundred  and  fifty  (3,150)  central  power  plants 
showed  that  39.3  per  cent  of  the  load  is  carried  by  water 
power.     Though  this  report  shows  what  has  been   done 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  185 


in  recent  time  in  centralizing  power  and  making  use  of 
water  power,  greater  things  are  in  the  plans  of  thought- 
ful men. 

A  Plan  to   Centralise  Power  Generators  in   the  Eastern 
Part  of  the  United  States 

The  Geological  Survey  is  asking  Congress  for  an  ap- 
propriation for  making  a  survey  and  devising  a  plan  for 
uniting  all  the  power  generators  in  the  eastern  part  of 
the  United  States  between  Boston  and  Washington  in  "one 
large  river  of  power,"  from  which  consumers,  transporta- 
tion lines,  and  industries  should  be  fed  from  a  centralized 
line.     The  Director  of  the  Survey  says : 

We  would  study  the  possibilities  of  power  production  at  the 
mouth  of  the  coal  mine,  linking  in  with  these  the  water  powers 
that  are  available. 

There  is  a  certain  amount  of  water  power  that  is  available 
and  there  are  some  very  good  water  powers  in  that  area,  but 
thoy  cannot  stand  alone.  They  must  be  hitched  up  with  steam 
plants.  Some  of  these  steam  plants  would  be  put  in  at  tide 
water  and  some  near  the  mines.  The  benefits  of  such  a  power 
rroject,  which  we  call  a  "super  power,"  are  that  we  make  the 
best  use  of  coal  and  half  the  coal  which  is  used  for  power 
generation  would  be  saved.  The  small  plant  that  makes  elec- 
tricity on  a  small  scale. has  only  one-third  or  one-fourth  the 
efficiency  of  the  big  modern  plant. 

Then  we  would  go  into  application  of  electricity  to  our 
railroads. 

Electrifying  a  Railroad  By  Power  from   Waterfalls 

Operating  Trains  Over  the  Great  Divide  by 

Water  Power 

The  Chicago,  Milwaukee  and  St.  Paul  Railroad  operates 
its  trains  over  its  lines  on  grades  which,  for  steepness  over 
long  stretches,  are  not  matched  in  the  United  States. 

For  four  hundred  and  forty  miles, — from  Harlowton, 
Montana,    to   Avery,    Idaho,— over   the   Big    Belt,    Rocky 


186  COAL 


Mountains,  and  Bitter  Root  Range,  which  forms  the  Con- 
tinental Divide,  the  trains  are  operated  by  electricity  gen- 
erated by  waterfalls  along  the  line.  For  twenty-nine  miles 
of  the  line  the  grade  is  two  per  cent,  for  eleven  miles  one 
and  two-thirds  per  cent,  and  for  forty  miles  it  is  one  per 
cent.  Steam  engines  would  have  trouble  drawing  heavy 
trains  up  such  grades.  In  normal  times  forty-two  im- 
mense engines,  weighing  two  hundred  and  eighty-four  tons 
each,  haul  as  much  as  thirty-two  hundred  tons  each  up  a 
one  per  cent  grade  at  a  speed  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour. 
Smaller  engines  haul  eight  hundred  tons  at  a  speed  of 
sixty  miles  an  hour.  In  addition  to  this  railroad  service, 
the  power  company  has  stretched  a  network  of  transmis- 
sion lines  over  a  large  part  of  Montana  and  Idaho. 

Eight  Million  Tons  of  CoKal  Saved  by  a  Creek 

Among  the  peaks  of  the  Sierra  Mountains,  there  is  a 
basin  into  which  drains  the  water  from  a  watershed  of 
eighty-eight  square  miles.  It  is  bounded  on  the  west  by 
a  low  ridge  and^  on  the  east  by  the  Kaiser  Range,  ten  thou- 
sand feet  in  height.  The  moisture-laden  winds  from  the 
Pacific  Ocean  sweep  over  the  low  ridge  on  the  west  of  the 
basin  and  strike  the  Kaiser  Range  on  the  east,  which  wrings 
out  the  water,  sending  it  back  down  into  this  basin,  which 
is  seven  thousand  feet  above  sea-level,  and  out  of  which 
runs  the  Big  Creek  on  its  way  down  to  the  Joaquin  River. 
The  hydro-electric  company  has  at  its  command  the  enor- 
mous head  of  four  thousand  feet  in  this  creek.  Down 
Big  Creek  is  the  first  power  house,  at  a  lower  level  of  two 
thousand  feet.  Here  are  installed  the  most  powerful  im- 
pulse wheels  ever  built,  and  the  largest  electric  generators. 
The  water,  flowing  out  of  six  inch  nozzles  with  a  velocity 
of  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  a  second  or  two  hundred 
and  forty  miles  an  hour,  strikes  the  buckets  of  the  wheels 
without  shock,  delivering  23,500  horse  power.  The  water 
then  flows  on  down  to  a  lower  level  of  two  thousand  feet, 
doing  work  in  another  similar  power  house.     Every  cubic 


GOVERNMENT  OWNERSHIP  OR  CONTROL  187 

yard  of  water  is  worth  twenty  pounds  of  coal,  and  all 
together  this  water  does  the  work  of  eight  million  tons 
of  coal  every  year.  The  current  is  transmitted  over  the 
largest  express  line  in  existence,  and  at  the  highest  voltage 
used  commercially.  The  line  is  carried  over  mountains  and 
desert  to  Los  Angeles,  distant  two  hundred  and  forty  miles. 
It  uses  three  thousand  steel  towers.  The  plant  likewise 
serves  local  industries. 

Hydro-electric  Plant  on  the  Mississippi  River 

The  hydro-electric  plant  at  Keokuk,  Iowa,  makes  use 
of  the  largest  stream  of  water  in  the  United  States,  just 
as  the  Big  Creek  plant  makes  use  of  the  highest  head  of 
water.  The  conditions  are  favorable,  at  that  point,  as 
the  steep  bluffs  on  both  sides  of  the  river  confine  the  water 
within  fixed  limits,  keep  it  from  spreading  over  the  banks, 
and  make  good  abutments  with  which  to  join  the  dam 
across  the  river.  A  dam  four  thousand  two  hundred  and 
seventy-eight  feet  long  is  needed  from  bank  to  bank.  The 
construction  of  the  dam  and  its  unusual  features  are  very 
interesting  but  cannot  be  discussed  here.  The  dam  is 
made  so  as  to  be  thirty-two  feet  above  the  normal  level 
of  the  water;  and  as  the  river  has  only  a  fall  of  twenty- 
three  feet  in  twelve  miles,  it  makes  a  lake  forty  miles  long 
and  three  to  five  miles  wide.  The  river  has  a  water 
discharge  of  from  twenty-one  thousand  to  seventy  thou- 
sand cubic  feet  per  second. 

The  turbines  have  a  rated  capacity  of  ten  thousand 
horse  power,  with  a  head  of  thirty-two  feet.  The  total 
capacity  is  two  hundred  thousand  horse  power. 

Great  as  is  the  amount  of  power  generated  here,  it  is 
surprising  to  find  that  it  does  not  generate  much  more  than 
half  as  much  as  is  produced  by  the  Big  Creek.  The  Big 
Creek  can  generate  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  horse 
power,  while  the  Mississippi  plant!  only  generates  two  hun- 
dred thousand  horse  power. 

Before  the  Keokuk  plant  was  completed,  a  contract  had 
been  made  to  supply  St.  Louis  for  ninety-nine  years  with 


188  COAL 

sixty  thousand  horse  power.  This  is  carried  to  St.  Louis 
by  a  transmission  wire  one  hundred  and  fifty-five  miles 
long.  (Other  cities  near  the  plant  clamored  for  electric 
energy,  which  could  not  be  furnished.  It  is  probably  that 
this  plant  is  capable  of  supplanting  two  million  tons  of  coal. 

The  Smallest  Public  Hydro-Electric  Plant 

The  smallest  public-service  hydro-electric  plant  known 
derives  its  power  from  a  torrent  in  the  gulch  in  the  Little 
Cottonwood  Canyon  in  the  Wasatch  Range,  Utah.  It  was 
built  by  a  town  of  four  thousand  inhabitants,  at  a  cost  of 
eighty  thousand  dollars.  The  power  house  is  two  miles 
from  the  mouth  of  the  canyon,  the  water  being  carried  to 
the  power  house  by  a  thirty-inch  stave  pipe.  The  water 
has  a  fall  of  five  hundred  feet.  The  plant  has  two  turbines 
and  generators,  each  developing  six  hundred  horse  power. 

The  cost  of  power  to  the  inhabitants  is  very  small, — 
for  lighting,  at  the  rate  of  seven  cents  per  kilowat  hour; 
for  cooking,  two  to  five  ^cents ;  on  large  contracts,  one  hun- 
dred horse  power  a  year  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars. 

In  order  to  show  the  great  range  of  possibility  of 
"white  coal"  as  auxiliary  to  black  coal,  I  have  given  as 
samples  the  extremes  of  hydro-electrification: 

(1)  The  longest  and  steepest  railroad  line. 

(2)  The  plant  with  the  highest  head  of  water. 

(3)  The  plant  with  the  largest  water  supply. 

(4)  The  smallest  public  service  plant. 


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